Why Must Chinese Women Eat Well, but Stay Thin? Food, beauty and eating disorders in contemporary China
Hua Ma explores how Chinese food culture and beauty culture shape women’s lived experiences of eating disorders.
About the project
The Polyphony Meets China is a collaborative project between Durham University’s Institute for Medical Humanities and universities in China, including the School of Health Humanities at Peking University and the Narrative Medicine Research Centre (NMRC) at Southern Medical University (SMU).
It was set up by Associate Editor Nicole Xuan Chen in 2022 and was then led by Guest Editor Rong Huang in 2024–2025. Xiao Ge will serve as the Guest Editor for 2025–26.
The project aims to provoke and catalyse reflections on core critical humanities concepts and ideas in both English
and Chinese contexts and to stimulate cross-cultural exchanges.
Specifically, the project produces two forms of engagement:
- Translated Polyphony articles for audiences in China
- Featured articles that explore such issues as medicine, health and illness in the sociocultural context of China as well as Chinese cultural heritage.
Vision and Ethos
The Polyphony Meets China is driven by the goal of raising awareness in China of specific diseases and bodily conditions that are stigmatised or poorly understood in Chinese society. Through this project, we hope to challenge stereotypes of marginalised voices and identities in dominant discourses and contribute to breaking the silence around taboo health concerns.
The project supports health humanities researchers and healthcare practitioners from or working on under-represented cultures in building their own voice and increasing their visibility in the international arena of medical humanities. It does this through its contribution to The Polyphony’s broader “Intercultural Dialogue Dispatch” emerging theme. The Intercultural Dialogue theme invites guests from different cultural and national backgrounds to critically examine the centrality of medical humanities in the UK and North America.
The Polyphony Meets China upholds The Polyphony’s ongoing vision to challenge the predominance of English-language scholarship as the key positioning of the medical humanities discipline.
Articles in Chinese
2025–26: In collaboration with the School of Health Humanities, Peking University. Translations by Xiao Ge.
18/12/2025: ‘Cultural Competence in Healthcare: A Global Necessity’
3/03/2026: ‘It’s Not Normal to be in Pain‘
3/03/2026: ‘Polyphony Meets China: A call for contributions‘
2024–25: In collaboration with the School of Health Humanities, Peking University. Translations by Rong Huang.
25/03/2025: Polyphony Meets China – ‘Chinese Humanities Symphony’ – Invitation letter
25/03/2025: Medical Humanities and Artificial Intelligence: Boundaries, Methodologies, Practice
18/04/2025: MedHums 101: What is Medical Humanities?
06/05/2025: Mapping the Global Medical Humanities (Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities)
6/08/2025: ‘Again’: Theatre and Geriatric Care in India
13/08/2025: The Problem of Interdisciplinary Hierarchies
18/08/2025: Power Struggle and Critical Encounter: Arts in Health and Medical Humanities
28/08/2025: Toward Multilingual Narrative Medicine
28/08/2025: Waiting in Pre-modern Medicine
29/09/2025: Humanities at the Threshold: Illness, Ethics and Epistemology in the Middle East
30/09/2025: Restorative Narratives (STORIES)
29/10/2025: Masala and Mangoes: Cultural Challenges in Implementing Dietary Changes in North India
2022–23: In collaboration with the Narrative Medicine Research Centre (NMRC) at Southern Medical University (SMU). Translations by Nicole Chen.
31/07/2022: The Polyphony Meets China Launching News article
03/08/2022: Graphical medicine and medical education
13/08/2022: End-of-life care
21/08/2022: Illness narrative
24/08/2022: Disability narrative
02/09/2022: Neurodiversity and autistic narrative
19/09/2022: The ethics of listening in clinical encounters
22/09/2022: Alzheimer’s disease and narrative care
08/10/2022: Medical Humanities Writing: On Close Reading
13/10/2022: Perinatal loss and narrative care
28/10/2022: How can medical humanities make you a better doctor?
04/11/2022: Medically unexplained symptoms
19/11/2022: Graphic Medicine and Chronic Illness
05/12/2022: Visual Representations of Old Age
23/12/2022: Learning How to Listen in Clinical Encounters
11/02/2023: Medical Humanities Writing: Attending to Humanities in Nursing Education
27/02/2023: MSc in Medical Humanities: Analysis of Medical Humanities Teaching Module
11/03/2023: Using stories to break the cycle of stigma and silence
25/03/2023: Grief, Reading and Narrative Time
Articles in English
What I know stays outside
Written in memory of her father, WAN Huan’s personal reflection explores her sudden loss to reveal how clinical knowledge breaks down within rigid hospital hierarchies, and why medicine requires humanistic empathy when silence, shock,
Fluid Boundaries of Cure and Care: Contested Meaning of Intravenous Treatment
M. Iqbal Syauqi Al Ghiffary explores Intravenous Treatment as a tangible cultural artefact that transforms abstract suffering into visible care.
When “A Bit Unwell” Means a Lot
Xue Dong examines a seemingly euphemistic expression used by Chinese patients that may actually suggest serious discomfort.
New Editor: Polyphony Meets China
We are pleased to welcome a new member of the team: Xiao Ge has joined as Guest Editor for the Polyphony Meets China (PMC) project.
Chinese Tea as Therapy
Xiaohong Liu introduces the concept and history of Chinese tea therapy, alongside its contemporary practice at Hunan Cancer Hospital in China.
Polyphony on Women and Dis-ease
Shu Yang reports on the latest developments in understanding diseases and disorders in the Chinese context from a gender perspective in medicine. “Dis-ease: Women and (Dis)order in China,” an international symposium co-organized by Global Asian Studies (GAS)
An Introduction to Narrative Palliative Care
Dr Fei Li explores the integration of narrative medicine and palliative care at Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) in China.
Autoethnographic Reflections on a Family’s Experience with Stem Cell Therapy
As biotechnologies continue to evolve, what kind of bioethics can sustain a proper sense of boundaries? Zhaohang Lyu explores how familial ethics and consumerism shape choices surrounding stem cell therapy in the context of its commercialisation in China.
Poetry for Self-Preservation: “Live, I Must” and “No, Not Really, No”
Dr Zhaohui Su shares her poetic approach to engage more deeply with the complexities of medicine and aims to foster a greater sense of empathy and awareness in healthcare.