In June 2020, I made my way back to Australia from Singapore amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Like everyone around the world, I was concerned about contracting the virus. But there was something else I was anxious about even whilst planning my return to Australia. I was worried about racism.

Since COVID-19 hit Wuhan, China in December 2019 and subsequently moved to infect people all over the world, anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism has erupted. In the U.S, President Donald Trump called the corona virus “the Chinese virus”. Unprecedented numbers of Asian-Americans reported verbal and physical abuse including an Asian-American middle schooler in Los Angeles who was hospitalized from being beaten by students who claimed he had the coronavirus. In Australia, Chinese Australians have also reported facing increased hostility since the COVID-19 outbreak including one family's home being vandalized with racial slurs. I felt especially vulnerable with my Asian/Chinese face, knowing that Singaporean-Chinese have been targeted overseas over the virus. In London, a Singaporean-Chinese student was attacked by a group of strangers who shouted “I don't want your coronavirus in my country”. In Melbourne, Australia, a Singaporean student and her Malaysian friend were physically assaulted when they responded to the perpetrators’ taunts of “coronavirus” and “go back to China”. Ironically, these attacks surfaced during a time when in Singapore, Singaporeans’ behaviour echoes white racists in the rest of the world: an online petition urging the Singaporean government to ban travel from China gathered 125,000 signatures. Mainland Chinese businesses and Chinese nationals have reported being shunned and the latter even verbally abused in Singapore.