Myopia was once racialized as an "Oriental disease". By comparing myopia prevention behaviors from Eastern and Western perspectives, I attempt to analyze the differences in power structures and common health narratives.
China's standardized eye exercises combine traditional massage with mechanized discipline norms. As a state-mandated body ritual, it shapes explicit disciplinary instructions through unified acupoint stimulation and rhythmic music. This practice not only inherits the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, but also implies the contradiction of efficiency management in the industrial era. In contrast, the West uses technical means such as orthokeratology lenses and visual training to conduct individualized interventions, enforce self-monitoring through precise procedural norms, and embed invisible discipline into medicalized self-care. Despite cultural differences, both systems enforce standardized body behaviors through unique but overlapping disciplinary logics, making them no longer just neutral health practices, but invisible mechanisms of social control.
By juxtaposing these models, I reveal the commonalities between "tradition" and "science" as medical governance tools, question the right to define and interpret health behaviors, and re-evaluate how power operates in personal health management through seemingly benign preventive practices.