Love - and life - in the time of flu

By Huang Zhiling (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-20 07:39

Bao Xueyang should have been on his honeymoon now - instead, he is reassuring residents of his hometown in Sichuan that he is doing fine.

"I feel well and my temperature is normal," is the standard reply to people in Neijiang inquiring about his condition.

But he refuses to talk about his wedding.

Bao, 30, a graduate student at the University of Missouri-Columbia in the United States, was confirmed on May 11 as the Chinese mainland's first H1N1 flu patient; and discharged from the Chengdu Infectious Disease Hospital in Sichuan on May 17 following a week's quarantine.

He left the US on May 7 to come home and marry his girlfriend Tang Juan.

"His wedding would have been held on May 15 if he had not fallen ill," said Jiang Xuefei, secretary to Neijiang Party chief Tang Limin.

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Jiang, who accompanied Tang when he visited the patient in the Chengdu hospital, told China Daily that Bao had not yet made any new wedding plans as he had just recovered.

Bao refuses to talk to journalists about his marriage plans because he considers it a private matter.

But what really hurts Bao is netizens accusing him of deliberately carrying the virus to China.

Some said he knew he might have had the infection, for he bought a thermometer before heading home from Beijing, and took a taxi to the Sichuan provincial hospital directly from the airport after arriving in Chengdu on May 9.

Bao refuted the claims, saying he had booked his ticket more than 20 days before his departure. "I was all right in Beijing. After I felt my throat was sore when I landed in Chengdu, I decided to have a check-up," he said.

His roommate in the US, Alex Chen, said Bao showed no symptoms before he left.

But Bao does have a sense of guilt for causing some 100 people to be quarantined. Before leaving hospital on May 17, he told journalists he had caused inconvenience to those people.

And when he returned home on the afternoon of May 17, Bao sent a red rose to Tang Juan - who said it was the first rose from her boyfriend.

Maybe Bao will be talking about his wedding soon.