A Chinese-French writer called the hostility triggered by the corona virus an "attack on China"
Thursday, June 11, 2020
UPDATimes - Chinese citizens in France and Canada said they experienced racist treatment amid the outbreak of the corona virus.
In France they use the hashtag JeNeSuisPasUnVirus (I'm not a virus) on social media, whereas in Canada, online attacks have appeared on Chinese restaurants there.
At present, in China there have been 6,000 cases of corona virus infection and 132 people have died.
In France, four cases have been confirmed, while in Canada there are three cases.
Racist sentiments against citizens of Chinese descent have been reported in several countries, including France and Canada.
"I'm Chinese and I'm not a virus!"
In France, residents of Chinese descent were angry when the local newspaper Le Courier Picard posted headlines "Alerte jaune" (Yellow Alert) and "Le péril jaune?" (Yellow Danger?), With photos of Chinese women wearing protective masks.
The newspaper hurriedly apologized, stating they did not intend to use "Asia's bad stereotypes".
Stéphane Nivet, to Licra (international league of anti-racism and anti-semitism), said there would be no newspaper daring to use the headline "Black Alert" indicating there was indeed a racism problem there.
As the hashtag spread, a woman in the city of Colmar, Cathy Tran, said when she left for work she had heard two men say, "Watch out. There are Chinese women in our direction."
"When I got home from work, a man on a scooter passed me calling to me to wear a mask," Cathy told the BBC.
Lou Chengwang also tweeted on Twitter: "I am Chinese and I am not a virus! I know we are all afraid of viruses, but please do not preserve prejudice."
France plans to send planes to Wuhan on Thursday (30/01) to evacuate around 250 people, including non-French European Union citizens.
The fourth case in France is said to be against an elderly Chinese tourist who is on vacation in Paris.
This sentiment is directed not only at the Chinese people.
Shana Cheng, a Parisian of Vietnamese-Cambodian descent, told the BBC he was also humiliated by bus passengers on Sunday (01/26).
"There is a Chinese woman! She will infect us. She must go," Shana heard a passenger say that. According to Shana, people looked at him "with a disgusted face, as if he were a virus".
Shana said there were no bus passengers to defend her. So he decided to just ignore the comment while listening to music.
Shana claimed he was deliberately pretending to cough and snort "to deliberately play with" people on the bus, he said.
Cathy Tran said she was not surprised by people's reactions, and the corona virus was the reason people were racist.
Bedaya, according to Cathy, he had never experienced the degree of racism like today.
"It's rare for us to hear Asians in France talk about racism, because we used to experience this while staying quiet. But now we feel together, and this is going too far," he said.
Canada
Meanwhile in Canada, some media reported racism sentiments towards Chinese citizens there, especially in the city of Toronto.
Twitter users from Toronto, Terry Chu, and several other mothers worry about the "inevitable wave of racism" as the corona virus spreads.
Copyright @ TerriChu @ TERRICHU
There are currently three confirmed cases of corona virus in Canada, and all three are from China.
But the Chinese community there has become a target of racism.
In York, a suburb of Toronto, a number of students' parents circulated and signed an online petition asking students who had just returned from China in the last 17 days to be prohibited from going to school.
On Monday (27/01) the school issued a letter condemning the petition amid fears students would be targeted at the school because of their ethnicity.
Racist sentiments against the Chinese have happened in Canada following the SARS outbreak in 2003.
When panic broke out due to the plague, many Chinese businesses in Canada experienced a slump in income.
The city of Toronto itself suffered a calculated loss of 1 billion Canadian dollars as a result of residents and tourists avoiding this city, especially in a part that is populated by Chinese shops and businesses.
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