For three minutes, Jiyoon Suh and about 20 others, stood frozen in place on the lawn in front of the Cupertino Public Library March 3. 

“What does hepatitis B do?” a young child asked Suh, president and founder of De Anza’s Team HBV, immediately following the freeze mob organized to bring awareness to the virus. 

Suh and the others held signs with statistics about the disease.

“The problem is not many people know about it,” Suh said. “They only get vaccinated when they should have also gotten tested. The problem with that is that if you’ve had hepatitis B since birth and you get vaccinated 10 years later, the vaccination wouldn’t have any affect at all.”

For the past eight months, Suh and her club officers have been working long day to get the Hepatitis B Awareness Chapter recognized as an official club on De Anza’s campus. “We’re really happy to be the first community college in the country to be part of the Team HBV International Organization,” she said.

Team HBV is an official chapter of the Jade Ribbon Campaign, which was launched by the Asian Liver Center at Stanford in 2001. The main objectives of the campaign according to the Asian Liver Center website are to eradicate the Hepatitis B Virus worldwide and to reduce the incidence and mortality associated with liver cancer.

“I’m Chinese, and I know there is a serious problem with Hep B in China and the rest of Asia right now,” said Julia Zang, administrative vice president. Finding out that one in ten Asian-Americans as well as Indian and Pacific Islanders are infected with chronic (meaning lifelong) Hep B was a real wake-up call for Zang. “It really evoked a sense a responsibility,” she said.

While the Hep B virus is a serious concern among the Asian population, it is definitely not exclusive to the race. “Not only Asians are effected,” Zang said. “It’s a worldwide problem for all races.”

Bringing awareness to the cause is personal for Suh, who had to take time off from high school because she contracted a rare disease in her liver.

After spending time in the Asian Liver Center at Stanford, a school assignment led her back to volunteer there, and Suh began to realize the need for exposure and Hepatitis B education. “I learned so much,” she said, “and I just thought, ‘OK, I was once sick because of this rare decease and other people are getting sick even though it’s preventable. I know more now and am really passionate about it. I should do something.'”

Before and following the freeze, volunteers handed out balloons, bubbles and temporary tattoos depicting ninjas battling Hep B to children leaving the library. “Our main target is for kids to get educated with their parents and come to get tested,” Suh said. 

Free Jade Ribbon Campaign bracelets and pins were handed out as well but the most important thing given away that day, according to volunteers, were the half-off coupons to get tested for Hep B at a local reputable clinic.

De Anza students weren’t the only ones present at the event. High school students like Westmont High senior Yena Cheong came out to show their support and join the unusual spectacle. “I was really interested to freeze for three minutes,” Cheong said. “I think it’s an interesting, cool viral way to bring awareness to people.”

Students like Cheong look to keep the fledgling club alive after the current administration moves on. “I’m actually going to go to De Anza after I graduate,” she said. “I think I’m going to be involved as an officer.”

At the end of the day, Suh exhaled in satisfaction with the result of the club’s hard work and expressed the sentiment that fuels the Team HBV movement. “It’s the really simple belief that everyone has the right to live a healthy life,” Suh said. “It’s just that one simple belief and one sentence that drives us every single day.”

POSE AND STAND STILL – (right) Pariyanka Kulkami, 20, operating vice president of the De Anza’s HBV Team freezes with Maily Ramos, 20. (Chris Watkins)