Infectious Change: Reinventing Chinese Public Health After an Epidemic

269 Pages·014.264 MB·English

by  Katherine A. Mason

infectious change

Katherine A. Mason
Infectious Change
Reinventing Chinese Public Health
After an Epidemic
Stanford University Press · Stanford, California
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2016 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written
permission of Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mason, Katherine A. (Katherine Anne), author.
Title: Infectious change : reinventing Chinese public health after an
epidemic / Katherine A. Mason.
Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015050118 | ISBN 9780804794435 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780804798921 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780804798952 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Public health—China, Southeast. | Public health
administration—China, Southeast. | SARS (Disease)—China,
Southeast.
Classification: LCC RA395.C6 M37 2016 | DDC 362.10951—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015050118
Typeset by Thompson Type in 9.75/13.5 Janson
For my family: past, present, and future

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction:
After SARS 1
1 City of Immigrants 37
2 Relationships, Trust, and Truths 68
3 Scientific Imaginaries 107
4 Pandemic Betrayals 143
Conclusion:
Caring for the Population 181
Appendix 1: Tianmai CDC by Department 203
Appendix 2: Glossary of Chinese Terms 205
Notes 211
Bibliography 223
Index 245
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Acknowledgments
Like so many scholars, I must begin this book with a statement of apology
about the impossibility of adequately thanking all of the people who made
my work possible. The debts of gratitude that I owe to my informants, col-
leagues, family members, and mentors are innumerable and immeasurable,
and I am sure I will never be able to sufficiently thank all those who should
be thanked. And yet I must try my best.
First and foremost, I extend my deep and heartfelt gratitude to all those
at the Tianmai CDC and elsewhere in Tianmai, Guangzhou, Beijing, and
Hong Kong who opened their lives to me and shared so much and so gener-
ously. Though I am not able to list their real names here, I hope that they
know how grateful I am to all of them for their willingness to welcome a
foreigner into their world and to trust me with their stories. Their friendship
means the world to me. In particular, I am deeply grateful to the man I call
Director Lan, who made it possible for me to work at the TM CDC; Lan’s
wife, a dear friend who remains unnamed in the text but whose ideas and
passions resonate throughout; Lan’s assistant, who became my protector and
roommate and who also remains unnamed but appears in various key places
in the text; and the woman I call Xu Dan, whose friendship, openness, and
insights drove many of the analyses in this work. I hope that these and my
dozens of other interlocutors understand that whatever critiques and sugges-
tions I raise in these pages are offered with respect and affection and with
the hope that bringing such issues to light might in some way help them to
find whatever it is they are looking for. I also ask for their forgiveness if my
necessary but clumsy efforts to conceal their identities and the identity of
Tianmai fail to prevent them from receiving unwanted attention from the __S
wrong places. __N
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ix