1. Two faces of AIDS in Hong Kong: culture and the construction of the 'AIDS celebrity'.
- Author
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Jones, Rodney H.
- Subjects
- *
AIDS patients , *HIV infections , *AIDS & society - Abstract
This article focuses on the HIV infection issue in Hong Kong with special reference to two HIV positive individuals in the territory. These two persons have voluntarily made public their seropositivity. One of the two was a British dentist named Mike Sinclair, who disclosed his condition to the media in 1992 and died in 1995 and other was J.J. Chan, a local Chinese disc-jockey, who came forward in 1995 and died just a few months later. After making their revelations, both became instant media personalities and were invited by the Hong Kong Government to act as spokespeople for AIDS awareness and prevention. This article explores how the public identities of these two figures have been constructed in the cultural context of Hong Kong where both Eastern and Western values exist side by side and interact. The effect of culture on the way 'AIDS celebrities' are constructed has implications for the way societies view the issue of AIDS and treat those who have it. It also helps reveal possible sites of difficulty when individuals of different cultures communicate about the issue.
- Published
- 1998
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