I know given the state of race relations these days that its easy to come out with the pitchforks, but Im Chinese American (Hong Kong) and my family and I have been staying away from chinese markets and restaurants. Im sure theres racism partly involved in this, but mostly its paranoia and being extra cautious.
It's the same for us, those who have been through SARS are extra cautious. We haven't been to Chinatown or central London in general for a while. I think earlier on around CNY the caution made sense; London is so connected with mainland China you would expect more cases to be around. Avoiding racism is another thing that have put us off venturing too far, especially when we've had colds and coughs.
My wife cancelled her trip to see family in Shenzhen but mostly just stayed in the neighbourhood in her days off. Her friends from China aren't meeting up much either. whatever is going on for the Chinese restaurants in the west, it's probably worst in China itself. My wife laments that a lot of the food places she lined up to visit in her trip in Shenzhen will probably close.
We had a pre-booked fine dining thing last week, but that also brought a sense of guilt, when all of her family in Shenzhen and my grandparents in HK have been stuck at home for weeks.
In the UK, only Corbyn has said something about this:
“It's disgraceful that the Chinese community have faced increased racism and over 50% business losses since the coronavirus outbreak. I've come to Chinatown here in Manchester, a city that has been twinned with Wuhan for 33 years. We stand in solidarity with the Chinese community.”
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