I was a Chinese Internet addict: a tale of modern medicine.(Letter from Beijing)(Fictional work)

I had read online about the Chinese Internet-addiction clinic, but I didn't know if it would accept me until I was actually there. The clinic was run by Chinese doctors and soldiers in a two-story block of concrete on the heavily congested grounds of the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital. Its entrance was a sloped hallway lined with inspirational posters: images of winding highways, palm-fringed swimming pools, empty beaches lapped by tropical waves. Flora, a film student who'd agreed to be my translator, read the captions as we walked in. "Overprotection will make your children disabled," she whispered. "Courage has unbelievable power."

A squat woman with blackened front teeth and a lab coat was standing expectantly in the waiting room. She wore white running shoes with Velcro fasteners, and her hair was cut into a tight bob that faded into a mullet. She smiled warmly and introduced herself as Dr. Yao. I thanked her for seeing me.

"How long do you go on the Internet each day?" she asked. I stared into space. "That would be, average, uh, eight to twelve hours," I said. "Sometimes less."

"What do you do on the Internet?"

"I read the news a lot. The New York Times online--every story. All of Google News, at least everything that's interesting. The Washington Post. Sometimes I send messages to friends and other people. Sometimes, when I have to buy an airline ticket ..."

"Do you play Internet games?"

"No. I just talk to friends and read. But I've watched cartoons on cartoon sites, and I look at things I could buy online."

"Do you have anxiety when you can't get on the Internet?"

"I do wonder if I'm missing messages from friends--emails I really should be reading--and I wonder about the news. Maybe there's a story, American politics or something, and every hour I want to know what's changed. When I have the opportunity, I check those things, and it feels better."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-nine."

I explained that my girlfriend, Jenny, was half Chinese, and let Dr. Yao assume that this had something to do with my being here. I said that Flora was a friend of Jenny's cousin and was helping me on behalf of the worried family. This was a lie.

A nurse in a pink cap walked by, then a soldier in camouflage fatigues. A girl of twelve or thirteen passed next, waving an exuberant good-bye to Dr. Yao while her father toted her suitcase. On the wall of the waiting room, I noticed, was an illustrated poster explaining the inner workings of computers: the Windows operating system, a Web browser set to Google, the interface of the popular Chinese chat program QQ.

"Do you have the ability to take yourself away from the Internet?" Dr. Yao asked. If I had to go to dinner with someone, I could go, I said. But I was often late.

She asked if I had other compulsive behaviors. I admitted that I sometimes read magazines all the way through from the front page to the back page, and that I felt compelled to watch movies, even bad movies, to the very end. She asked if "small things" got stuck in my head, if I often stayed up all night, and if I thought about the Internet while doing other activities. "It's not the Internet itself that I think about but the things inside it," I said.

I was led to a small room furnished with a pullout futon and a gray computer. The hallways were empty; the director and most of the patients, Dr. Yao explained, were at the set of Tell It Like It Is! one of the oldest and most famous of China's talk shows. She seated Flora and me in front of the computer. Its desktop image was a field of blooming flowers with characters that read, "I really want my psychological health."

On the computer was a diagnostic test. Dr. Yao said there were ninety statements, and I was to rate their truth on a scale from A (not at all true) to E (very true). She helped me fill in my biographical details--level of education, date of birth, profession (I said I had none)--then left Flora and me in private.

"You have headaches," the computer offered. I chose "B." "You get agitated." I chose "C." "When you have headaches, your head is filled with unnecessary thoughts and words." I pondered the necessity of my thoughts. "C" again. "You feel dizzy or faint," the computer continued. "You have less desire for the opposite sex. You have no desire for food. You check things again and again. You hear things others cannot. You feel that others control your mind. You can't control your temper. You blame your troubles on others. You blame yourself. You are forgetful. You feel lonely. You feel scared. You feel bored. You feel sick. You feel irritable. You cry easily. You worry about your appearance. You worry too much. You can't fall asleep. You have a hard time breathing. You feel your brain is empty. Your heart beats too quickly. You have chest pain. You are afraid of open spaces. You want to smash things. You think about death. You want to end your life. There is something blocking your throat."

I lied outright only a few times: claims of lethargy, lack of appetite, indifference to sex, and isolation from others. I managed a sort of exaggerated honesty, sticking at least to the contours of the truth. If a statement merited a "B," I might give it a "C." But an "A" was always an "A," an "E" always an "E." None of the ninety questions mentioned the Internet, and after an hour the test was done.

A new doctor, younger and much taller than Yao, with fine features on a narrow face, came in with a printout of the instantaneous results. I received decent marks for anxiety, depression, interpersonal communication, and hostility-nothing over what the doctor said was the threshold, 1.50. But my level of paranoia was worrisome: 2.00. Worse was my obsessive-compulsive rating, 2.20. "This is bad," the doctor said. Toward the bottom of the page was a number that seemed out of place: 60. I asked what it signified. She didn't hesitate: "That means you're an Internet addict."

That afternoon, I sat in Dr. Yao's office, looking at translations of Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and Sigmund Freud as she asked about my successful father and mother and my history of small colleges and good grades. Two doctors, both men, strolled by carrying a pirated DVD of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which they started watching in the room where I'd …