1 Introduction
Many academic publications in the social sciences as well as in medicine, public health, and epidemiology indicate the exacerbation of social inequality in health care in different countries during the Covid-19 pandemic. In any given society, social inequality in health care among ethnic and racial minorities varies considerably (Abedi et al., 2021; Chowkwanyun & Reed, 2020), because of differences in socioeconomic status, living conditions, and access to health care (Esenwa et al., 2021; Lopez et al., 2021). Peres et al. (2021), for example, note that in Brazil, patients who identified as White (36%) and Asian (34%) had more access to intensive care treatment than patients who identified as Black and Brown (32%) or indigenous (28%). Based on this finding, they argue for more preventive health-care measures aimed at people in ethnic and racial minority groups that are the most vulnerable, in order to address their lower access to testing and treatment for Covid-19, both of which are linked to their lower economic status. In the US, African-Americans have the highest levels of morbidity and mortality linked to Covid-19 (Yancy, 2020). Frydman et al. (2020) and others emphasize that, in addition to genetic or pre-existing conditions, some socioeconomic factors, such as access to health care, food, and lifestyle choices influence coagulation, particularly for the prothrombotic phenotype (of African-Americans) in the treatment of and testing for Covid-19. African-Americans are also likely to have less access to prescriptions for anticoagulants than people who identify as White and are also less likely to have therapeutic treatment.1 In Sweden, statistics on Covid-19 mortality and morbidity in both the first and the second waves of the pandemic show that foreign-born individuals have affected much more than people born in Swedish (Bredström & Mulinari, 2022). Inequality in health care was exacerbated during the pandemic, sparking a public health crisis, which reflects the history
In France, the national survey “Epidemiology and Living Conditions” (EpiCov) carried out among economically active French people between eighteen and sixty-four years old, shows the “cumulative effects of social inequality” (Bajos et al., 2020, 8), which affects immigrants and descendants of immigrants, particularly those of non-European origin who often have the most underprivileged social background. Social inequality in health care is especially exacerbated in areas that are considered disadvantaged, such as the Seine-Saint Denis area (Mariette & Pitti, 2020a, 2020b).
In the context of a general shortage of medical resources, non–French speaking immigrant populations are affected by systemic discrimination in health care even more during a pandemic (Azria et al., 2020). This is due to language barriers and a lack of understanding of the French health-care system, as well as their rights in general. The population of Chinese origin in France, a majority of which comprises non–French speaking immigrants, has not been spared the ramifications of inequality in health care, which worsened during the pandemic: a lack of access to treatment and a delay in receiving care, among others. The third and fourth cases of Covid-19 in France in January 2020 were those of an elderly Chinese man and his daughter, both tourists in France. The first died a few days after being hospitalized in Paris, almost ten days after his symptoms first appeared. During these first ten days, no hospital there agreed to admit him (MigraChiCovid, 2022).
From the point of view of the French health-care system and the healthcare professionals who work in it, one might ask: how should a person of migrant background who become vulnerable because of Covid-19 be cared for? And from a migrant patient’s point of view, one might also ask the following questions: how does the people concerned cope with the situation? And does he or she mobilize other resources outside the French health-care system? In this respect, shifting from an approach based on a “cure” to one based on “care” is essential. In France, as defined by Pascale Molinier (2010), the notion of “care work” refers to specialized activities that explicitly focus on concern for others. Care consists of proposing actions and ways of doing things that are adapted to the needs of the recipient. Concern for others is all the more a part of Chinese medicine, which requires a care relationship centered on the person who is suffering and listening to the patient. In France, the importance of listening and the relationship and empathy between caregiver and patient is often among the reasons that patients turn to Chinese medicine (Wang, 2022b). Faced with the exclusion of Chinese and Chinese-speaking patients from the French health-care system, health-care professionals of Chinese origin and other resource persons within ethnic networks are mobilizing to find solutions.
This chapter is based on the observation of these two coexisting social realities: on the one hand, vulnerable Chinese migrants suffering the consequences of social inequalities in French health-care system, and on the other, these same people access care thanks to community resources. There is a paradox between the fact that they are more or less neglected by the French health-care system and the fact that they are finally equipped with care resources throughout the pandemic. This chapter aims to analyze this paradox and how it was built and how it was made possible, by examining the interventions of caregivers of Chinese origin within the French health-care system or on its margins: the creation of a new Chinese-language emergency phone line, launching alerts about pandemic conditions for French colleagues, sharing and translating scientific information in different languages, offering care using Chinese medicine, and so on.
2 Health Care for Chinese People in France: Heterogeneity and Inequality Exacerbated by Covid-19
The majority of the Chinese population residing in France lives in Île-de-France. They form an extremely heterogeneous group in terms of social class, gender, ethnic origin, geographic origin, and migratory generation (Wang, 2017). This diversity is reflected in geographic access to medical services (conditioned
Moreover, it is important to emphasize the fragmentation of the population of Chinese origin in France in terms of knowledge of the French health-care system. Using statistics collected through the online MigraChiCovid questionnaire (see Figure 11.1, as estimated with a multinomial logistic regression and presented as a ratio of exponential odds), we found that, among the respondents, those who were born outside France and are now naturalized citizens were more likely to say that they have gained general knowledge of the French health-care system since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic than descendants
Knowledge of the French health-care system and the evolution in Covid-19-related knowledge among Chinese people in France
In the following pages, we first examine the treatment offered to patients of Chinese origin by medical personnel from the same migratory background who work in the French health-care system, including hospital workers, doctors, and non–hospital-based medical professionals. We look at their engagement with the reorganization of the French health-care system, which aims to reduce social inequality in health care. We analyze the diverse professional practices of these medical professionals of Chinese origin: the creation of a Chinese-language emergency services hotline, the launch (with French colleagues) of a pandemic alert system, and the sharing and translation of scientific information in different languages, among others. We highlight the dual roles as facilitator and mediator played by medical professionals of Chinese origin working in the French health-care system. These health-care professionals facilitated the transnational circulation of knowledge and medical information related to Covid-19, while also supporting access to health care for patients of Chinese origin, particularly those whose economic conditions are unstable or who do not speak French.
Then, we study the health-care practices developed by medical professionals of Chinese origin who work on the margins of the French health-care system: practitioners of Chinese medicine and paramedical personnel, among others. They are trained in Western or Chinese medicine, but their credentials are not recognized in France, and they often received their degrees before immigrating to France. These medical practices take the form of care and prevention methods organized within Chinese ethnic networks, both physical and virtual. Examples include the creation of Chinese-language telehealth systems
3 Working toward Better Treatment for Chinese Patients: Actions of Doctors of Chinese Origin in France
The actions that health-care professionals of Chinese origin have taken to mitigate the effects of systemic discrimination and the lack of support for Chinese migrants inevitably occur within the pandemic-related reorganization of the French health-care system and are influenced by renewed professional concern due to Covid-19. They include the high-level government decision to create new systems for treating patients and sharing expertise (Bergeron et al., 2020), the coordination of medical activity between health-care institutions and medical and social organizations (CNS, 2021), and the structure of local primary care (Hassenteufel et al., 2020) amid a larger regionalization of health care. It also includes patient triage practices and the hierarchization of clinical, social, and interpersonal activity (Gaudillière et al., 2021), as well as access to available information at a time of medical uncertainty (Bloy, 2008; Castel, 2008) for doctors, their sociability within professional networks (Castel, 2005), the use of new technology and telemedicine (Manus, 2021), the postponement of nonurgent surgery, and suspension of paramedical treatment, among others.
3.1 The Creation of a New Chinese-Language Emergency Services Hotline
In March 2020, during the first lockdown in France, a Chinese-language hotline was put in place for French emergency services, called the SAMU. The line is active between 8 am and 6 pm, and the call center team consists of twelve people of Chinese origin, including two psychologists. All the call center agents have medical training, which they obtained in France or China. Before the hotline opened, there was also a twenty-four-hour training course in emergency medicine. The initiator of this hotline is Dr. Na, an emergency room doctor. She arrived in France in 2009 through an exchange program between Wuhan University and Pierre and Marie Curie University, earned an undergraduate degree in emergency medicine, followed by master’s degree in
Since 2013, she has worked in the emergency room at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. As soon as she began working there, she proposed the creation of a consultation system specifically for patients of Chinese origin. The consultation system was created in 2015; one afternoon a week, she sees patients for general medicine consultations. According to her, the patients are diverse in terms of profession and immigration status, comprising students, businesspeople, salaried employees, tourists, and undocumented migrants. They all lack familiarity with the French health-care system, largely because they lack proficiency in the French language. Their reasons for seeking medical care vary widely and include chronic illness, cancer, and vaccinations. For Dr. Na, the fact that she had spearheaded this consultation system for Chinese patients (proposed in 2013 and created in 2015) greatly facilitated the establishment of a Chinese-language emergency services hotline because doing so enabled her to obtain a good understanding of the organizational steps required to set up this type of service. She also already knew the administrative procedures and the people in charge of this type of health-care service, which involves not only medical but also social organizations.
Compared to the first wave [of the Covid-19 pandemic], this time [October 2020], the people [Chinese patients calling the hotline] seemed much more collected, and were calm: “I tested positive [for Covid-19], what should I do now?” Whereas during the first wave, it was [a time of] complete panic for patients. There was a lot of controversy between doctors
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED IN CHINESE, OCTOBER 2020over what the best treatments were, so, patients were very worried, and we felt their stress immediately. This time, in October, people knew that 85 percent of diagnosed cases would be mild.
Fluctuations in the use of this emergency services hotline by people of Chinese origin mirrored the Covid-19 conditions in France, notably when hospitals were at capacity, and the French health-care system was overwhelmed. The creation of this hotline, coupled with offering adapted methods of care for immigrant patients—particularly of Chinese origin—during the first period of the pandemic reduced social inequality in health care and facilitated access to care for migrants. At the same time, this response by Dr. Na also shed light on the limits of the French system, especially the lack of translation services available to patients in health-care contexts. However, translation services are routinely offered to migrants from English-speaking countries, such as Canada and the United States.
3.2 Non-hospital-based Care on the Frontlines
Like Dr. Na, Dr. Lei is a doctor of Chinese origin who received her medical degree in France. After arriving in France in 2000 during her first year of medical school in China, Dr. Lei quickly realized that medical degrees from China were not recognized in France, and, so, she abandoned her studies in China and start again in France. After spending two years studying French, she passed the entrance exams for medical school and enrolled at Paris Descartes University in 2004, repeating one year of studies. She graduated in 2017 with a degree in general medicine and began to work at a clinic in Bussy St-Georges in 2019.
I like the contact with patients—listening to them and having a friendly conversation. In France, clinic-based care is a parallel method to treatment at a hospital. I think that [the French] developed this pathway relatively early. … They organized treatment in cities, in general medicine, and through family doctors, which really helps the public system. … If I can help China one day, if I go back to China, I would like to participate in the development of this system of treatment in cities.
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED IN FRENCH, JANUARY 2021
We can do video consultations to avoid having an outbreak on the premises. And this is what we did, and I strongly encouraged my colleagues to do this as well, so that we could try and keep the clinic as unaffected as possible. After the first lockdown [March 2020], there were many fewer visits, and fewer patients, but behind the scenes [online] it was nonstop. … For me, telehealth consultations were new, and before this, I wasn’t at all interested in telehealth—I preferred face-to-face appointments. But when the pandemic started, I found that we didn’t really have a choice, and it was also a measure to protect others, the most vulnerable. … I treated patients who were diagnosed [with Covid-19] or who had suspected cases. We had protocols—the health insurance system and the Department of Health sent us protocols.
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED IN FRENCH, JANUARY 2021
In fact, the third stage of the planned pandemic response strategy, which was officially reached in March 2020 (see Ministère de la santé, 2020) explicitly predicted that non–hospital-based doctors would find themselves “on the frontlines in ensuring treatment for patients who do not require hospitalization.” This shed light on the unique position of clinics and independent medical professionals during a particularly destabilizing pandemic, caught between the official stance of public authorities—which was to avoid sending Covid-19 patients to hospitals if possible—and the needs of the population, particularly if they required care that surpassed what clinics could offer.
As a non–hospital-based doctor, Dr. Lei actively participated in the reorganization of daily work at her medical practice during the urgent public health conditions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. This included managing patient flows, the use of telehealth appointments (Iengar et al., 2020), and adapting treatments. She also collaborated with an anti-Covid center in a suburb of Paris and helped handle the delivery of 1,700 pieces of PPE sent from China, donated by three Chinese churches in Paris (see Chapter 12).
In this section, based on our interviews with Dr. Na and Dr. Lei, we analyze the actions of medical professionals of Chinese origin to reduce inequality in
4 Mobilizing Diaspora Resources and Caring for Compatriots on the Margins of the French Health-Care System
Different medical treatments and preventive practices for fighting Covid-19 have developed in Chinese ethnic networks. These practices were put in place by actors from diverse backgrounds: practitioners of Chinese medicine who are not recognized as doctors in France, businesspeople, volunteers at Franco-Chinese organizations, representatives from the Chinese embassy in France, and ordinary citizens, and others. Despite the fact that they are often invisible to those outside these networks, health-care resources that exist outside the French health-care system—or, in other words, within Chinese ethnic networks and include mutual aid, transnational care systems, and traditional Chinese medicine—have always existed (Wang, 2019a, 2022a). During the pandemic, however, because of both the scale and the urgent nature of Covid-19, these ethnic resources became more visible.
Among the 387 respondents to the MigraChiCovid questionnaire, thirteen people—nine women and four men—claimed to have been infected by Covid-19. Figure 11.2 shows the results of a logistic regression examining how the fact of Covid-19 infection affected the probability of seeking telehealth appointments or in-person appointments in “alternative” medicine, namely Chinese medicine, by the respondents to the online questionnaire. This model considers only a subset (n = 261) of the original sample composed of respondents who stated that they had been infected (n = 13) or had not been infected (n = 248), excluding respondents who said that they did not know whether they had been infected (n = 118) or did not wish to answer the question (n = 8). After we controlled for migration status, age, education, and sex, the respondents who had been infected with Covid-19 were much more likely to seek telehealth appointments or in-person appointments in Chinese medicine [OR = 26.6, 95% CI = 4.78, 166, p = < 0.001].
Tendency among Chinese people in France to seek treatment with Chinese medicine
Our qualitative findings support these statistics. The interviews carried out with five infected patients of Chinese origin and one close family member of an infected person (in all, four women and two men; four migrants and two
Summary of the treatment plans of the six Covid-19 patients or relatives of patients interviewed
| Patient or relatives of patient | Origin and profile | Period of infection/disease | First care sought | Second care sought |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (Male) cousin of the patient interviewed |
Chinese (migrant, came to France post 2010, PhD candidate) | October 2020 | Practitioner of Chinese medicine (CM): prescription, entering in contact with Chinese herbalists in Belleville (end of treatment) | |
| 2 (Male) son of the patient interviewed |
Chinese (migrant, went to France in the 1990s, unskilled worker) | April–May 2020 | French emergency services (SAMU) - Hospitalization -discharge of the hospital (end of treatment) During the period of the first national lockdown in France, the family of the patient drank an herbal infusion of Chinese medicine as a preventive |
|
| 3 (Female) son of the patient |
Chinese (migrant, went to France in the 1980s, unskilled worker) | April 2021 | Practitioner of CM | SAMU - Hospitalization -discharge of the hospital (end of treatment) |
| 4 (Female) | Chinese (descendant of Chinese migrants, born in France in the 1990s, skilled worker) | March 2020 | General Practitioner (teleconsultation) – Covidom (website) online follow-up (end of treatment) Her parents (living in the same household) are following various natural remedies (e.g., hot ginger beverages) since Covid-19 |
|
| 5 (Female) | Chinese (descendant of Cambodian migrants of Chinese origin, born in France in the 1990s, skilled worker) | April 2020 | General Practitioner (teleconsultation, prescription of the drug Dolipran) – Call for the SAMU (she was advised to stay at home; prescribed treatment with Doliprane) (end of treatment) | |
| 6 (Female) | Chinese (migrant, went to France post 2010, skilled worker) | October 2020 | Teleconsultation via the platform “Doctolib” (prescription for Doliprane) | Entering in contact with the Union of Chinese Researchers and Students in France (UCECF), receipt of the Covid-19 health kit distributed by the Chinese embassy in France. She took Chinese medicine lianhua qingwen in the Covid-19 health kit for ten days (end of treatment) |
My cousin [who had a PhD in biology from University of Paris 13] does not believe much in Chinese medicine—for him, it’s not very scientific, but I pushed him to take some [Chinese medicine], saying, “In any case, right now you have nothing else to take for this illness, so you might as well try it—it won’t kill you.” I also told him that Ms. Cai [practitioner of Chinese medicine] is very competent. In the end, after he had taken Chinese medicine for two days, his energy came back quickly, and his sense of taste and smell returned as well, so he kept taking it and said, “Ah, it’s magical, it’s really good.”
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED IN CHINESE, JANUARY 2021
Ms. Cai, mentioned in this interview, is not officially recognized as a doctor but practices at a Chinese medicine clinic in Rueil-Malmaison, a suburb west of Paris. Originally from the Wenzhou region, she went to France in 1988 at age twelve and is now forty-five years old. She is descended from four generations of Chinese medicine practitioners in China and grew up surrounded by the culture of Chinese medicine. After studying first to become an accountant and then a nutritionist, she began to pursue it professionally. After she finished a training program in Chinese medicine and received a degree in international acupuncture recognized by the French government, she opened her
In February 2020, Ms. Cai created four WeChat groups in which she provided telehealth advice and care. This consisted largely of giving advice based on users’ state of health, particularly those with suspected infections with Covid-19 and diagnosing and following up with patients. The majority of the latter were of Chinese origin, with a few French and Italian people as well. At the time of our interview (October 2020), Ms. Cai was also contributing to nine other WeChat groups, in which she gave information sessions on Chinese medicine, mostly in Chinese, to spread information about self-diagnosing Covid-19, so as to be prepared. In addition to offering treatment, Ms. Cai was also involved in the supply and transnational exchange of masks (see Chapter 12).
Ms. Cai estimates that she treated more than a hundred Covid-19 patients between February and October 2020. In March 2020, she started to write a book about her experience in treating Covid-19 with Chinese medicine. The French edition of this book, Vaincre le Covid-19 et autres virus par la médecine traditionnelle chinoise [Overcoming Covid-19 and Other Viruses with Traditional Chinese Medicine] was published in July 2020.5 The book was also translated into Spanish. The treatments that Ms. Cai offers work in conjunction with treatment using Western medicine. She works with, among others, a primary-care physician originally from Vietnam who practices in Amiens and who attended a training program in Chinese medicine.
This general practitioner and I transfer patients between us, and we try and direct them toward biomedicine or Chinese medicine. As I don’t have the right to prescribe [medicine], I send him some patients who need medication.
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED IN CHINESE, OCTOBER 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic, more than any other modern historical event, has changed the way in which treatment is offered—namely, via the internet (Pierce et al., 2021). In addition to consultations via WeChat in Western
4.2 Making Medical and Paramedical Information about the Covid-19 Virus and Disease Accessible
On April 4, 2020, during the first national lockdown in France, Renmin Net (owned by the People’s Daily, the newspaper of the CCP) and the Chinese embassy to France co-organized a virtual conference hosted by Dr. Zhang Wenhong, an infectious disease specialist and professor at Fudan University in France. The conference was aimed at Chinese people in France, specifically students. During the conference, the audience posed many questions for Dr. Zhang: How did he think Covid-19 conditions will evolve in France? What exchanges of scientific information on Covid-19 have taken place between China and France, and what are possible future collaborations between the two countries in fighting the pandemic? How can people protect themselves in daily life? During this conference, Lu Shaye, the Chinese ambassador to France, Ren Limin, the spokesperson of the Union of Chinese Researchers and Students, Xu Kui, the president of the Franco-Chinese Overseas Chinese Association, the president of the Franco–Southern Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and several representatives of Chinese students in France attended online.
Later, on November 8, 2020, during the second lockdown in France, Oushidai Media, which is part of the Chinese media group Ouzhou Shibao (News from Europe),6 and the Franco-Chinese Medical Association organized a webinar with three doctors,7 two of which are of Chinese origin, on the theme “Preventing and Containing Covid-19, Staying Healthy.” The goal of this webinar was to spread up-to-date information about Covid-19 conditions in France and to dispense professional advice about staying healthy to people of Chinese origin living in France. In more than three hours of discussion, the
That same month (November 2020), Ouzhou Shibao organized a series of online conferences, dedicated to psychological support and resources during the pandemic for overseas Chinese living in Europe.8 The four sessions focused on family communication,9 managing stress and emotions,10 music therapy,11 and painting therapy.12 Two of the speakers were mental health professionals living in China, and two other presenters live in France and Germany, respectively.
Chinese medicine and its ability to treat Covid-19 occupied a special place at these three events. This highlights the willingness of the Chinese state to bring Chinese medical norms to the international stage, through the globalization of Chinese medicine (Wang, 2019b). Together, these events reveal the ways in which Chinese-language medical and scientific information on Covid-19 has been made available to ordinary overseas Chinese. Expert resources can be found in France and other European countries, as well as in China. Thanks to digital tools and techniques, the sharing and transnational circulation of knowledge is made possible.
These virtual meetings with health-care professionals from China, France, and Europe can be seen as a kind of collective response to the worries of others, for their countrymen who live abroad, as a way to complement the health-care system in the living country. Some of these activities were organized at the behest of the Chinese state or of organizations that represent China abroad, such as the distribution to Chinese students of Covid-19 kits from China, coordinated by the education branch of the Chinese embassy in France. (For a more detailed analysis of this state-organized action, see Chapters 2, 7, and 12.) Finally, in our fieldwork, we noticed other types of self-organized treatment and preventive actions on the margins of the French health-care system, developed at the local level between neighbors in some residential housing developments, in areas with especially dense concentrations of low-income populations of Chinese origin (see Chapter 5). The Chinese diaspora population in France has organized diverse forms of treatment, structured through different subgroups of the Chinese people in France, based on social and professional status and residential address.
In the face of social inequality exacerbated by the pandemic, two types of treatment have become available—in the French health-care system and on its margins—and are complementary; both are indispensable for helping people to remain healthy and offer more equal access to Covid-19 care for immigrants.
Thanks to the medical professionals of Chinese origin who work in the French health-care system, more adapted medical care is available for the population of Chinese origin. The responses of these medical professionals, during this new and unprecedented health-care crisis, revealed the limits of the French health-care system, which does not sufficiently take into account the specific needs of foreign patients, particularly those who are vulnerable due to their language, culture, and socioeconomic status. Other health-care practices have developed on the margins of the French health-care system, among the Chinese diaspora in France. To protect, inform, and care for their overseas compatriots, people of Chinese origin have organized different forms of care and protection, sometimes in subaltern ways, at the local level, based on neighborhood relations, in places where there is a concentration of people of Chinese origin in the working and middle classes. One example is the development of a therapeutic aspect of Chinese medicine, which requires a care relationship centered on the person who is suffering and listening to the patient. Each subgroup of the Chinese population in France has mobilized the resources, information, and treatments that are available to that group.
Nonetheless, the public health crisis has not changed the health-care hierarchy, made up of the French system, which is grounded in a clinical Western medicine approach, and the so-called alternative medicine practices developed at its margins. It also has not overturned the professional relationship between medical actors—who work in hospitals and medical offices—and paramedical actors, as well as local governments and regional public health responses.
The gendered aspect of care work, observed in our fieldwork, should be emphasized. The health professionals we met are all female. The link between care and women might be obvious (Memmi, 2017), but it is relevant to mention the history of subaltern care and service work, which is mostly handled by women in the Chinese diaspora in France and, at the same time, the demographic characteristics of student movement from China to France, which is also mostly female, across disciplines (Campus France, 2021).13 Furthermore, the Covid-19 pandemic changed the delivery of care, taking advantage of the
At this unprecedented moment, the response to Covid-19 has illuminated the potential for co-constructing intersectoral systems of action (particularly between the medical sector and the social sector) and for medical pluralism (patient-centered care) with regard to creating more equal access to health care and, at the same time, questioning the long-term feasibility of these changes. All these elements invite further reflection on the important component of care work in a therapeutic relationship, as well as the organization of care and the health sector (Butler, 2020; Green et al., 2022). By taking into account the vulnerability of racialized people and people of immigrant origin, the ethic of care demands a rethinking about the relationship with justice (Molinier, 2010; Paperman & Laugier, 2005) in the era of global health.
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For more discussion on ethnic and racial disparities in Covid-19 morbidity and mortality, see the summary of relevant literature in French and English in Wang (2021).
This refers to a mobile app for text and voice messaging developed by the Chinese company Tencent. For information on the use of WeChat among the Chinese diaspora worldwide, see Sun and Yu (2022).
She was licensed to practice medicine in China in 2009.
She is a member of the National Federation of Traditional Chinese Medicine (FNMTC).
For more information on the book, see https://livre.fnac.com/a14946216/Angelina-Jingrui-Cai-Vaincre-le-Covid-19-et-autres-virus-par-la-medecine-traditionnelle-chinoise/.
This media group was registered in France in 1983, and today, as it handles current events in Europe, it has offices in different European countries. See the official website http://www.oushinet.com.
A recording of the webinar is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5-gGeR23Do/. The three doctors are: Christian Huet, an emergency services doctor in Paris, at the Necker Hospital and the Pitié-Salpêtière Hospital since 2001; Yanni Hu, a general practitioner, in a medical practice in the third arrondissement in Paris; Na Na, an emergency room doctor at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, discussed earlier in this chapter.
Among the 29,731 Chinese students enrolled in degree programs in France in the 2019–2020 academic year, 60% are women.