HIV / AIDS, Health and the Media in China Imagined Immunity
Through Racialized Disease, 1st Edition
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Media, Culture and Social Change
in Asia
Series Editor
Stephanie Hemelryk Donald
RMIT University Melbourne
Editorial Board:
Devleena Ghosh, University of Technology, Sydney
Yingjie Guo, University of Technology, Sydney
K.P. Jayasankar, Unit for Media and Communications, Tata Institute of
Social Sciences, Bombay
Vera Mackie, University of Melbourne
Anjali Monteiro, Unit for Media and Communications, Tata Institute of
Social Sciences, Bombay
Laikwan Pang, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Gary Rawnsley, University of Leeds
Ming-Yeh Rawnsley, University of Leeds
Adrian Vickers, University of Sydney
Jing Wang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality work by both
new and established scholars in the West and the East, on all aspects of
media, culture and social change in Asia.
1 Television across Asia
Television industries, programme formats and globalisation
Edited by Albert Moran and Michael Keane
2 Journalism and Democracy in Asia
Edited by Angela Romano and Michael Bromley
3 Cultural Control and Globalization in Asia
Copyright, piracy and cinema
Laikwan Pang
4 Conflict, Terrorism and the Media in Asia
Edited by Benjamin Cole
5 Media and the Chinese Diaspora
Community, communications and commerce
Edited by Wanning Sun
6 Hong Kong Film, Hollywood and the New Global Cinema
No film is an island
Edited by Gina Marchetti and Tan See Kam
7 Media in Hong Kong
Press freedom and political change 1967–2005
Carol P. Lai
8 Chinese Documentaries
From dogma to polyphony
Yingchi Chu
9 Japanese Popular Music
Culture, authenticity and power
Carolyn S. Stevens
10 The Origins of the
Modern Chinese Press
The influence of the Protestant Missionary Press in Late Qing China
Xiantao Zhang
11 Created in China
The Great New Leap Forward
Michael Keane
12 Political Regimes and the Media in Asia
Edited by Krishna Sen and Terence Lee
13 Television in Post-Reform China
Serial dramas, Confucian leadership and the global television market
Ying Zhu
14 Tamil Cinema
The cultural politics of India's other film industry
Edited by Selvaraj Velayutham
15 Popular Culture in Indonesia
Fluid identities in post-Authoritarian politics
Edited by Ariel Heryanto
16 Television in India
Satellites, politics and cultural change
Edited by Nalin Mehta
17 Media and Cultural Transformation in China
Haiqing Yu
18 Global Chinese Cinema
The culture and politics of hero
Edited by Gary D. Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley
19 Youth, Society and Mobile Media in Asia
Edited by Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson and
Damien Spry
20 The Media, Cultural Control and Government in Singapore
Terence Lee
21 Politics and the Media in Twenty-first Century Indonesia
Edited by Krishna Sen and David T. Hill
22 Media, Social Mobilization and Mass Protests in Post-colonial Hong
Kong
The power of a critical event
Francis L. F. Lee and Joseph M. Chan
23 HIV/AIDS, Health and the Media in China
Imagined immunity through racialized disease
Johanna Hood
Note on cover illustration
Photographer: An Dong (安东)
Source: Beijing Morning Post
Date: World AIDS Day 2002
The cover image originally appeared on the front page of a major Beijing
newspaper and shows a Chinese girl looking at a poster at the first major
exhibition on HIV/AIDS in Beijing, for World AIDS Day 2002. The
original caption read “Yesterday, China's Science and Technology Museum
held a youth AIDS publicity event with the themes ‘recognize, prevent, and
pay attention.’ This picture of a crying African child makes spectators
recognize that the problem of AIDS transmission is growing more serious
by the day, becoming a social problem to which the world cannot but attach
great importance.”
Credit: Courtesy of An Dong (安东)
HIV/AIDS, Health and the Media
in China
Imagined immunity through racialized disease
Johanna Hood
First published 2011
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2011 Johanna Hood
Typeset in Times New Roman by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hood, Johanna.
HIV/AIDS, health, and the media in China:imagined immunity through racialized disease/Johanna
Hood.
p.; cm.—(Media, culture and social change in Asia; 23)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. AIDS (Disease)—China. 2. AIDS (Disease) in mass media—China. I. Title. II. Series: Media,
culture, and social change in Asia series; 23. [DNLM: 1. HIV Infections—ethnology—China. 2. HIV
Infections— psychology—China. 3. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome—ethnology— China. 4.
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome—psychology—China. 5. Cultural Characteristics—China. 6.
Mass Media—China. WC 503.7]
RA643.7.C6H66 2011
362.196’979200951—dc22
2010029666
ISBN13: 978-0–415-47198-5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-83281-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780203832813
Contents
List of figures
Acknowledgements
1 At the intersections of HIV/AIDS: power, disease, others, and
China's media
2 China's media: telling and knowing HIV/AIDS
3 Differentiating understandings: hei (黑) black and blackness, race,
and place
4 Hei (黑): Africa, Africans, and HIV/AIDS
5 Yuanshi (原始): presenting the origin and primitive circumstances of
HIV/AIDS in Africa
6 Kexue (科学): scientism and HIV/AIDS
7 Conclusion
Notes
Glossary of Chinese-language terms
Bibliography
List of sources and credits for figures
Index
Figures
1.1 Poster 7 of Beijing University's November 2003 “Civilization”
campaign
3.1 “STDs are my closest friends”
3.2 “Don't let tears become the last drop of water”
4.1 “Overthrow the Immunity Troop”
4.2 White woman shown as the “good news” image of the “good news
and bad news” column in a Chinese periodical
4.3 Black girl shown as the “bad news” image of the same “good news
and bad news” column
4.4 Black African depicted in Chinese newspaper
4.5 Poster used in a public health campaign on HIV/AIDS in the 1990s
4.6 Cover of a 1991 book on HIV/AIDS showing “foreign” and non-
Han Chinese people
4.7 Image in a book used for training Chinese doctors
4.8 Image in a book used for training Chinese doctors
4.9 “An AIDS patient dies of kidney failure in a South African
Hospital”
4.10 “Longing for life”
4.11 “Six-year-old Zimbabwean AIDS orphan: the gaze that stirs your
heart”
4.12 Over 90 percent of the images from The Clinical Illness AIDS
Pictorial use black bodies to illustrate disease
4.13 “A social health worker auscultating 2 HIV + kids”
4.14 A shirtless black man receiving intravenous therapy
4.15 Poster at the first major exhibition on HIV/AIDS in Beijing, for
World AIDS Day 2002
5.1 A young black man playfully running through a swarm of locusts
in Senegal
5.2 Monkey holding a typical Chinese cooking pan and mug
5.3 A couple carrying a monkey strapped to a pole, a man drinking
from a bowl, and another man being injected by a woman
5.4 An image paired with a description of how the simian
immunodeficiency virus (SIV) came to infect humans as HIV
5.5 An image from an article on foreigners in Chinese prisons
5.6 “Infected with AIDS for ten years, the Kenyan woman suffers the
double burden of both poverty and disease”
5.7 “An incapable Haitian AIDS patient lies on hospital bed”
5.8 “Feliciana, a 28-year-old prostitute. She is one of a rare group of
people who have been exposed to HIV but appear to be naturally
resistant to it” and “The green monkey, suspected to be the original
animal reservoir of the microbe that became HIV”
5.9 How civil war intensifies the spread of HIV
5.10 “An African woman together with her pet monkey”
6.1 Cover of a book about contagious disease showing the hygienic
behavior of Chinese scientists and Chinese people
6.2 Photo collage in a book by famous ‘AIDS Hero’ and doctor, Gui
Xi'en
6.3 The image shows Chinese HIV-positive people and the captions
describe behavior which will prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS
6.4 Minority (possibly Uighur) subjects reforming under the care of
Chinese nurses and doctors
6.5 A child happily playing with glasses meant for viewing an eclipse
6.6 Image from an article on the overcrowding of Rwandan jails
showing male prisoners crammed into a single jail cell
6.7 “Mother and child”
6.8 “A young AIDS sufferer currently receives cocktail therapy”
6.9 A Chinese scientist triumphantly identifying the monkey as the
origin of HIV
6.10 High-ranking politicians (Wen Jiabao and Wu Yi) shaking hands
with HIV-positive Chinese patients on World AIDS Day in 2003 in
Ditan Hospital, Beijing
6.11 Socialist realist drawing suggesting the competence of the state
and its police force in combating social evils
7.1 Chinese people happily and actively involved in HIV/AIDS
education
Acknowledgements
Researching and writing about HIV/AIDS in China is by no means an easy
task. But despite the many challenges and frustrations I faced, the
experience has been interesting and rewarding for me. The research I share
began as a minor project, but the complexities of the topic, the absence of
other publications, my stubborn drive to see it through, and the friendship
and support I received all conspired to transform it into this book.
I carried out my final checks and edits in Beijing shortly before the 2008
Olympics. New regulations, meant to ensure the security and prestige of the
event, limited my access to – or indeed completely closed down – many
research facilities and areas that I, a nonlocal, frequented within the city and
surrounding countryside. I had serious difficulty revisiting many of the
sources discussed in this book, and the access I gained was only possible
with the help of my local colleagues. One librarian who took issue with the
Olympic regulations – which closed the library to non-university borrowers
– decided to allow me to verify my sources, but was reprimanded after an
undergraduate reported me, as I apparently posed a security breach.
Although at the time I was incredibly frustrated, I see these experiences
differently in retrospect. Trying to navigate China during a sensitive time
brought to the fore the similarities between what I was experiencing and
what I was writing about: both revealed China's insecurities (both textual
and real) and how “misunderstandings” – in the sense that the explanatory
models common urbanites invoke to make sense of disease are deemed by
experts to be incorrect or misunderstood – of non-Han Chinese people, their
customs, cultures, and intellectual traditions, are important to making sense
of contemporary China. I would argue that these “misunderstandings” still
need to be seen as “understandings,” yet I recognize that these have been
formed in ways that are not in line with “expert” explanations of HIV.
There are many people and organizations that have helped and
encouraged me across the planning, research, writing, and editing stages of
this book. I could not have undertaken the project without the sustained
flexibility and generous funding of the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the logistical, visa,
administrative, and research assistance of the China–Canada Scholar
Exchange Program (CCSEP). Their support allowed me to spend over three
years studying, trawling libraries and archives, and attending World AIDS
Day-related events in different cities in China. It also meant I could form
the networks and personal relationships critical to the research methods I
used for the book. Additionally, my participation in the Scholar in
Residency Program of the Australian National University and the Beijing
University, the Australian–China Council Residency, and the Canadian
Embassy in Beijing graduate internship program allowed me access to
resources, contacts, and events which would have been difficult to organize
on my own.
I am also eternally grateful to my friends, family, and the wonderful
librarians and colleagues I met through the researching and writing of this
book. They listened to my ideas, helped with theoretical debates, and with
the organization, editing, and of course the anecdotes I've included in the
text. It was only through their kind support, patience, and faith that I
managed to see this project to publication. I am indebted to my ‘da jie’
librarians at Beida, Renda, and Xiada, and also to the staff and students of
the Anthropology and Language and Literature departments of the latter
two universities. I owe a very big thank you to UNAIDS China, UNAIDS
photo library, and to several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and
government-organized NGOs (GONGOs) working on HIV/AIDS in China
for opening their resources and sharing their experiences with a stranger. I
would like to acknowledge staff by name in this text, but can't for political
reasons.
Thank you Louise: your friendship and your extraordinary professional
and personal support are tremendously appreciated. I receive limitless
inspiration, mentorship, and encouragement from you. Thank you Kam,
your insight and support at ANU were invaluable. Thank you Victoria, I
could not have completed the final stages of this project without your
editorial genius. I certainly hope the future will hold many opportunities to
work together. Thank you Hanna, Yuvany, Cindy, Alex, Curtis, and Emilio
for your comments across what have been the dozens of versions of this
book. Thank you Greg: your lovely accent made what I thought was the
final read-through much more enjoyable. Although I take full responsibility
for the translations, I owe the ‘helplines’ of Rob and Li Jin many thanks as
well: they were always available for questions and help when I was stuck.
Thank you Mel, Alissa, Marc, Fiona T., Christian, Janelle, Christophe,
Harry, Cam, Tanya, Laura, Ivan, Fiona C., Graeme, Hilo, Sam, Paul and
Sven, Yop, Liu Mei, Xiao Jian, and Kevin for your friendship, coffees,
cocktails, conversations, and climbing partnerships over the years. These
non-research outlets gave me the necessary energy to find some humor in
my various bureaucratic, visa, research and publication, online fax,
EndNote, Word and Word's wordcount nightmares. And last but not least,
thank you to my family: Hannes, for joining and extending it and for seeing
me through my numerous formatting and software crises with your
unlimited moral support and your hours and hours of assistance; Mom and
Dad, for encouraging me in so very many ways; and Tiny Tim, for your
patience and for lending me an ear while I cultivated both the book and
your final form into being.
Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders of
images. The publishers would be pleased to hear from any copyright
holders not acknowledged in the captions so that they may be amended at
the earliest opportunity.
