On Feburary 3, Son who scored in three consecutive games, had a video interview with local sports media after the match against Manchester City in the 25th round of the English Premier League in the 2019-2020 season at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. When he gave small dry cough twice after game during interview, some local soccer fans made comments to the effect that Son Heung-min was infected with the new coronavirus. One uploaded the photo which seems to mock Son by combining masks in photos of the players.
After coronavirus spread out to the world, people panicked and alarmed to it. Because of high infection rate and the fact that medicine hasn’t developed yet, the existence of new virus gave the world in chaos. However, at certain point, our fear and horror started to direct to China, not virus itself. Only because coronavirus was found and spread from China, Chinese people became the target of criticism.
The French local newspaper <Le CourierPicar> took issue with the headline “The Yellow Alert” on its front page as well as the German local newspaper <Der Spiegel> “Made In China”. Not only in Internet, many Asians living in the United States, Britain, Canada, Italy, and etc. are suffering from racist words or incidents. Racism is expanding toward Asians.
Even among Asians, Chinese are discriminated by others. People unconsciously draw the line between them and China by saying “I’m not Chinese, I’m…(their nationality)”. They tried to show the difference and separate from them. Such as the word China-phobia growing, the word ‘China’, ‘Chinese’ became to include the fearful image and the masks. It turn into the virus itself.
Coronavirus don’t have nationality. What we should be angry and afraid of now is not the people but coronavirus. Racism is the most dangerous and spontaneous virus in the world. #Imnotvirus #Jenesuispasunvirus
Nahyun Lee
Asia Journal
(Los Angeles Times Advertising Supplement)
K-UNIV Reporter
