Xi's wife Peng Liyuan supports HIV kids
After making a film to raise awareness, Peng Liyuan's touch shows she is true to her word
A day after Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping visited a community clinic treating HIV/Aids patients in Beijing, his wife, Peng Liyuan, held hands with children infected with the virus.
Attending the launch of a short film designed to increase public awareness of HIV/Aids in Beijing on Saturday, Peng, who stars in the Ministry of Health production, walked onstage arm in arm with the children who were her co-stars. They contracted the virus from their parents.
It is the third HIV/Aids awareness film in which Peng has appeared. She was also appointed the ministry's ambassador for HIV/AIDS prevention in January 2006 and became the World Health Organisation's goodwill ambassador for tuberculosis and HIV/Aids last year.
Peng, 50, who became a household name as a People's Liberation Army folk singer, is seen teaching a boy infected with HIV how to play the piano in the film, Always Together.
She also holds Gao Jun, a boy infected with HIV from Fuyang , Anhui , in her arms, while she paints and plays football with him and kneels down to tie one of his shoelaces.
Gao referred to her as "mother Peng".