AN activist for Hepatitis-B carriers was criticized by a public servant with the city heath authorities when he presented a basket of pears to the agency as an urge to work harder on law enforcement, Chinese-language newspapers reported Thursday.
It has recently become a popular colloquial among young Chinese people to use pear to represent pressure as pear has a similar pronunciation with pressure in putonghua.
Lei Chuang, a graduate student at Shanghai Jiaotong University and a household name in activism for Hepatitis-B carriers, took the basket of pears to the city s health, population and family planning commission after learning a disappointing investigation result on three hospitals accused of conducting Hepatitis tests for employers, the Daily Sunshine said.
Hepatitis tests are banned by Chinese labor law but many employers still commission hospitals to conduct the tests before recruiting new staff.
Lei recently filed a complaint with the health authorities against the three hospitals after verifying claims by a number of Internet users that the hospitals are still conducting Hepatitis tests for employers.
The authorities ordered a Pingshan hospital to correct its practice and said further investigations were continuing on the other two hospitals.
Lei said he was disappointed that the authorities didn t even make a public criticism against the Pingshan hospital.
Lei presented the pears to a staff member of the health authorities who refused to accept them. This was what we can do, said the staff member. However, another female employee who saw Lei and the pears was apparently upset. Young man, care your own business. Don t mess up your life with stuff like this, the female employee said to Lei.
Lei left the commission s office with his pears. His treatment at a public institution in Guangzhou last month was totally different. He gave the institution pears because it was found to have conducted Hepatitis-B test before signing employment contracts with jobseekers. His pears were happily accepted by a staff member of the institution, saying the pears were a drive for them to abide by laws. (SD News)
