Paper short abstract:

This study mainly using ethnography to record and investigate the COVID information in China's hottest social platform and to see how this internet information impact the healthcare choices and shape the health of Chinese migrants living in the UK during COVID-19 period.

Paper long abstract:

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, China has published ten versions of treatment handbooks, and different local governments in China has published their treatment guidance. Among these handbooks and guidance, strategies like ‘zero-tolerance’ and using traditional Chinese medicine to prevent treat COVID have been identified as quite unique that were not used by other countries, and such medical approaches have not only been impacting people living in China but also Chinese migrants living abroad. The overseas Chinese browsed the different and changing information online and their healthcare choices may be somehow impacted by information from China.

The main focus of this study is to understand how online COVID information from China impacts Chinese migrants in the UK during the pandemic. The ethnography work of this study was conducted both online and onsite. The online ethnography was employed as the first method. The online part was conducted at the most popular social platform, Weibo, in China. Through observing the trending words and people’s discussion about them, data were collected for discourse analysis. Also, onsite ethnography was taken in a Chinese medicine clinic in London to see the healthcare options of Chinese migrants when facing COVID, and if such options were influenced by information from China. This study then used such data to analyse the role of culture in pandemic, how different culture clash to influence people’s health needs, and how migrant identity shaped health of Chinese migrants in the UK during the COVID.