chapter 9 The Unknown Virus: The Social Logic of Bio- conspiracy Theories in Contemporary China* Kevin Carrico Following a long night of drinking with colleagues in early 2010, Chen made what he claims was his first and only visit to a sex worker, at a sauna in Guang- zhou.1 After a semi-sobering shower, he proceeded to a back room. A young woman with a Northeastern accent soon entered, and after a bit of suggestive massaging, the true intention of his visit began. Aware of the potential risks involved, Chen wore a condom; however, he was unable to perform and left in embarrassment after some awkward embraces and even more awkward dia- logue. On his walk home, where his wife and daughter were already fast asleep, Chen began to feel itchy, and claimed that he could feel his organs swelling inside of him. When he awoke the next morning, he had a throbbing headache and diarrhea, and vomited a number of times. Overlooking the possibility of an intense hangover after a long night of drinking, Chen’s mind immediately raced to his liaison, or rather his attempted liaison, the night before, and then raced onward to aids, where everything suddenly made quite anxiety-inducing sense: he had contracted aids during his sauna visit. When his first hiv test came back negative just a few days later, he did not feel relief: instead, he was certain that it was wrong.2 In the weeks and months that followed, Chen experi- enced chills, sweating, diarrhea, uncontrollable muscular spasms, depression, weight loss, and impotence; furthermore, he underwent one hiv test after another, completing a total of fourteen at various medical institutions around * I would like to thank the Comparative Literature Section at Sun Yat-sen University, particu- larly Ai Xiaoming 艾晓明 and Ke Qianting 柯倩婷, for providing me with such an intellec- tually exciting home during my fieldwork. I would also like to thank Magnus Fiskesjö, TJ Hinrichs, Gail Hershatter, Ronald Knapp, and Tiantian Zheng for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts and presentations of this project. 1 Pseudonyms are used throughout this chapter to protect the anonymity of interviewees. 2 Numerous aspects of “unknown virus” narratives, from the nearly immediate onset of “aids” to its easy passage through condoms to the assumed accuracy of hiv tests taken within days of presumed exposure, stand in stark contrast to the biological realities of the actual hiv virus. While recognizing and indeed analyzing these incongruent moments, this chapter nevertheless aims to present this illness as experienced by patients, despite apparent bio- logical inaccuracies and logical shortcomings. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi �0.��63/97890043�9��9_0�� Kevin Carrico - 9789004319219 Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 01:59:10PM via free access <UN> The Unknown Virus 253 the city in the year that followed, all with the same “wrong” result: negative. While attempting to hide his secret anguish from everyone around him, he gradually became convinced that he had unintentionally infected his family and coworkers, tying their occasional complaints of headaches, chills, and oth- er forms of discomfort to that fateful night at the sauna. When I got to know Chen, he had largely withdrawn from society. Yang, a twenty-four-year-old real-estate agent and longstanding virgin, spent most of his waking hours on the popular chatting portal qq. But in late 2010, his life took an unexpected turn when he began chatting with a quite open- minded female acquaintance known as Lonely Soul (Jimo de Linghun 寂寞的 灵魂). Their chats became quite intimate and eventually led to an agreement to meet in person; Yang soon found himself in a seedy hourly motel room en- joying his first sexual experience. Yet he was shocked to find, he tells me, that his companion acted “like a damn animal,” panting and screaming throughout their encounter, scratching his back, kissing him aggressively, and even biting his lip so hard that she left teeth marks. Returning to his parents’ apartment after this overwhelming evening, Yang first lay in bed and ran his fingers over the interior of his mouth, the object of Lonely Soul’s untamed aggression and the subsequent object of Yang’s fascination over the months to come. Con- vinced that the once-smooth interior of his mouth had suddenly grown rough and bumpy, he spent endless hours that night anxiously staring into a mirror, inspecting his tongue, gums, and the inner surface of his cheeks, all of the while growing increasingly anxious about Lonely Soul’s sexual aggression, presumed promiscuity, and the risks that such behavior brings. Reading the bumps in his mouth like a fortune of impending doom, the physiological changes that he perceived presented an unambiguous and painful truth to Yang: he had been infected with aids during his one-night stand. Yang took one hiv-test after another in the months that followed, refusing, like Chen, to accept his repeated negative results. As he perceived his condition worsening, Yang quit his job and gathered the courage to admit his illness to his parents: his mother broke down in tears and cursed him repeatedly, he tells me, while his father sat in silence, staring blankly ahead. Since then, Yang has spent much of his time in bed in his parents’ apartment, increasingly distant even from those physically closest to him. Despite their self-isolation, Chen and Yang are not alone. A few months into each of their infections, they both discovered an online community of thousands of people in cities across China, particularly in the Pearl River (Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Dongguan, and Shenzhen) and Yangtze River (Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing) delta regions, who, over the past five years, have similarly become convinced that they are infected with a terrifying aids-like disease, Kevin Carrico - 9789004319219 Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 01:59:10PM via free access <UN> 254 Carrico which has an almost immediate onset of symptoms after sex, proceeds to destroy one’s immune system and bodily organs, but which continually pro- duces negative results in hiv testing. Dozens of online groups and forums have emerged in which those who have been infected share their symptoms, experiences, anxieties, and hope for a cure, gathering around the contradic- tory name “hiv-negative aids” (yinxing aizibing 阴性艾滋病 or simply yinzib- ing 阴滋病) or the ominously elusive term “the unknown virus” (weizhi bingdu 未知病毒).3 Bringing their cases to a number of media outlets in recent years, particularly Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily (Nanfang dushi bao 南方 都市报), patients have not only succeeded in generating public discussion and growing concern about this new illness but have also seen a rapid expansion in their ranks from 2009 through 2010.4 Drawing the attention of the authorities, the Ministry of Public Health responded in the beginning of 2011 by conduct- ing a characteristically non-transparent study of sixty patients in six provinces and municipalities.5 Announcing its findings in early April 2011, to the surprise 3 Information related to this illness began spreading over such popular forums as dzh.mop .com 猫扑大杂烩, Baidu 百度 info pages, and qq chat in 2008. This eventually led to the formation of a number of qq groups dedicated to the discussion of hiv-negative aids, many of which have been erased by censors since the official state response of April 2011. How- ever, since mid-2010, these multiple sources have been consolidated into one main website, www.life-voice.org, which serves as a very lively central forum for discussion of all aspects of this illness (along with the recent emergence, following life-voice.org’s block by the Great Firewall of China in late June, of an unblocked mirror site www.life-voice.info), and one qq mega-group which has been able to survive state crackdowns by registering under a rela- tively innocuous name. In the ever-tightening Internet environment of 2013, these sites and groups have been shut down for an extended period. 4 The Southern Metropolis Daily is known for its relatively open approach to reporting, com- pared to most Chinese media. One of the paper’s more influential early reports on this illness is Bao Xiaodong’s 鲍小东 “Huo zai ‘weizhi bingdu’ yinying xia 活在‘未知病毒’阴影下 [Life in the Shadows of the ‘Unknown Virus’],” Nanduwang 南都网 (nddaily), Oct. 14, 2009, http:// gcontent.oeeee.com/d/fb/dfb84a11f431c624/Blog/d2e/3889b7.html (accessed Nov. 4, 2013). 5 At other times, the government has also claimed that ninety-nine patients were involved according to a cctv report viewed in Zhengzhou, April 8, 2011. In a thought-provoking attempt to allay doubts and prove the thoroughly scientific nature of this investigation, the prc Ministry of Public Health claims that patients’ samples were also sent to a laboratory in the United States for final analysis. See “Zhongguo bao shu qian ren ran ‘yinzibing’ 中国 爆数千人染‘阴滋病’ [Thousands in China Infected with hiv-Negative aids],” Taiwan Ping- guo ribao 台湾苹果日报 (Taiwan Apple Daily), April 6, 2011, http://www.appledaily.com .tw/appledaily/article/international/20110406/33298142/(accessed Nov. 4, 2013). However, no evidence has been presented to support this claim, and the speed with which results were concluded and released has led to widespread skepticism amongst patients. Kevin Carrico - 9789004319219 Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 01:59:10PM via free access <UN> The Unknown Virus 255 of self-proclaimed carriers, the Ministry asserted that there was in fact no such thing as hiv-negative aids, no new virus that had infected this group, and that their primary problem was psychological, namely aids-phobia.6 One researcher from the Ministry of Public Health even went so far as to joke that the only means of transmitting this virus was the popular chatting portal qq, which has hosted numerous hiv-negative aids discussion groups.7 Dismissing patients’ concerns, they were advised to steer clear of pernicious rumors and pursue a more “sunny” life.