Treatment of Chinese-looking people

Coronavirus or not, I've never been "invisible".
Maybe it's the area i live, but wherever i go, people always look at me funny and tend to make racist comments.

Since when are people racist to Chinese people other than the same way people take the piss out of the french or Germans

Chinese (or Chinese 'looking' people) in the UK are often ignored and on campuses or in the street tend to be 'invisible' - but Coronavirus gives some white people an excuse to bring out the subdued racism that normally tends to be tucked away.

In the UK
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/01/coronavirus-weaponised-way-to-be-openly-racist

US cases
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/31/top-european-music-school-suspended-students-east-asia-over-coronavirus-concerns-amid-rising-discrimination/

https://time.com/5775716/xenophobia-racism-stereotypes-coronavirus/

Elsewhere in the world
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/no-chinese-allowed-racism-and-fear-are-now-spreading-along-with-the-coronavirus-2020-01-29

We should fight back against this new excuse for a wave of racist behaviour.

Look out for it on your campus. Don't be silent if you see examples.

Be friendly to Chinese students. Show you like them.

This will be affecting many students who are not from China but 'look Chinese' - this applies to people from other E. Asian countries, or students brought up in this country.

Read factual information about Coronavirus. Don't reach for easy prejudices and stereotypes and avoid Facebook, which is spreading misinformation on this subject.

since coronaviru hit and the 'they eat anything alive' racism kinda joke staring spreading to basically anyone chinese looking who dont even eat dogs in the uk

I think the important issue is the assumption that anyone from East Asian or with heritage from their region whether they are Japanese, Korea or whatever is considered Chinese.

Some people should be careful in their environment but don't allow their racist tendencies to come out in the open.

Honestly, this is a bad situation for them and its seriously and unfairly hurting the rest of the world's image of them.

Either way the stereotyping and racism are not helpful and are deeply hurtful and isolating to the people affected.

It will get worse if people surrender to prejudice and fear. We don't have to do that.

I think the important issue is the assumption that anyone from East Asian or with heritage from their region whether they are Japanese, Korea or whatever is considered Chinese.

The statistics prove this is unreasonable - 15,000 infections for a population of 1.4 billion means that there is a 0.0001% of any Chinese person having the coronavirus.

It's no different in East Asian countries though. I live in Japan. Yesterday a couple of Chinese people got on the train, obviously speaking in Chinese, and you wouldn't believe how quickly the seats around them emptied. Racism is as prevalent in East Asian countries as it is in the West, probably more so to be honest, people just aren't as open about it. It's more of an at home thing than something to be expressed publicly. Outside of the home, it's expressed more through subtle actions than words, like leaving an empty seat next to a foreigner on an otherwise packed train, or an empty apartment that you're enquiring about renting suddenly becoming unavailable when the company realises that your not Japanese. The way that the Japanese news reports on China sometimes, they might as well just say straight up "China's backwards and inferior" and be done with it.

I've been to China as well, and to be honest, it's no different there either.

People love to subtly let you know that you're an outcast if for some reason you don't quite conform, look different, act different. It doesn't just happen to foreign people either. You'd be a fool to presume that Chinese people themselves aren't treating people from Wuhan/Hubei in a similar manner. It's probably worse within China than anywhere else in the world tbh.

I remember seeing something about people demanding passengers from Wuhan on a flight in China be taken off after recognising their accent. And the sign a Japanese shop had up saying no Chinese were allowed. The thing is the people are scared and with the extreme quarantining going on, it’s making the virus look probably more deadly than it is (and now over 20% of those in hospital seem to be in serious or critical condition, so it is deadly). The government are being strict about face masks and avoiding contact, so it makes sense that people hearing this would be cautious. The government wouldn’t be reacting the way they were if they didn’t think it was a big deal. Nevertheless I feel bad for those who are experiencing people avoiding them, it’s horrible.

It's no different in East Asian countries though. I live in Japan. Yesterday a couple of Chinese people got on the train, obviously speaking in Chinese, and you wouldn't believe how quickly the seats around them emptied. Racism is as prevalent in East Asian countries as it is in the West, probably more so to be honest, people just aren't as open about it. It's more of an at home thing than something to be expressed publicly. Outside of the home, it's expressed more through subtle actions than words, like leaving an empty seat next to a foreigner on an otherwise packed train, or an empty apartment that you're enquiring about renting suddenly becoming unavailable when the company realises that your not Japanese. The way that the Japanese news reports on China sometimes, they might as well just say straight up "China's backwards and inferior" and be done with it.

I've been to China as well, and to be honest, it's no different there either.

People love to subtly let you know that you're an outcast if for some reason you don't quite conform, look different, act different. It doesn't just happen to foreign people either. You'd be a fool to presume that Chinese people themselves aren't treating people from Wuhan/Hubei in a similar manner. It's probably worse within China than anywhere else in the world tbh.

This is absolutely correct. The statistics prove this is unreasonable - 15,000 infections for a population of 1.4 billion means that there is a 0.0001% of any Chinese person having the coronavirus. You are more likely to be killed in a road accident.

The government certainly sprung into action to build that hospital, despite a still relatively low number of infections being officially reported. I've seen Chinese people claiming the true number of infected to be much much higher.

The number of infected here in Japan has passed 20 now, a few of those being amongst the people evacuated from Wuhan. Still pretty low. But my girlfriend attempted to buy some face masks today (not in response to the corona virus, she just uses them whilst teaching or when she has a cold or whatever) and the three stores we went to were completely cleaned out of them. Not sure if that's Japanese people buying them, or Chinese people buying and sending them back to China. But there's a general nervous feeling floating around I think, even though everything seems totally normal on the surface. Japanese people can be a little distrusting of people from the other Asian countries in normal circumstances, so this virus thing probably won't help things.

I was teaching English to a group of primary school age kids at the weekend and one of them was half-Chinese. When he mentioned that he would like to go travelling, the immediate reaction from the others was to warn him against going to China because it was dangerous and he'd get sick. I think the reaction took him by surprise. It's probably bad enough already being half-Chinese in a country that values homogeneity and conformity so highly, without this added on top. Bullying is a very real problem in Japanese schools, since anybody that stands out for any reason can easy find themselves marginalised or targeted. Hopefully the whole situation peaks fairly soon and starts to die down.