Playwright’s Note

Abstract

When Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Lester Β Pearson slammed bedroom doors on the noses of the nation, Canadian gay men came out of the closet in a celebration of pride and newly found self-worth. We had hardly drawn our first breath fresh air when we found we’d moved out of closet into a ghetto. With political determination and help from increasing numbers of enlightened individuals of all types and persuasions we began to dismantle the ghetto walls, aids struck, and stronger, higher walls rose around us with alarming speed. Stone by stone, rumour by rumour, death by bone-chilling death, we found ourselves, encircled Terrible social cruelties emerged, teachers lost jobs, men too weak to care for themselves lost friends, relatives, apartments – basic human needs were snatched away without a second thought. The virus became more important than the humanity it destroyed. We rallied and, informed more by compassion than fear, we began again. Stories of heroism emerged from behind viral ghetto walls Warm Wind in China is dedicated to friends and lovers and those who seek to understand.