Sunday 24th May, 2020                                1945

Just a bit of fun. First draft of the exam paper I will set my reading classes for their end of term in a couple of weeks. Their task is simply to highlight (not correct, that would be cruel) the errors.

In lockdown maybe a bit of fun for some and of you want to have a go just reply in the comment section as to how many errors you identified. I will post the original script in a couple of days with the answer. 

Highlight any mistakes you find. They could be spelling, grammatical, wrong context – anything. Points will be earned for each error correctly identified but points will be deducted for anything highlighted which is not a mistake. When you have finished you may hand in your paper and leave, however, take your time – this exam is far more important than the home assignments you did. This article will not be found online except on my computer so searching is pointless. I wrote it!

The Racist Impact Of Covid-19

I set an assignment with a report on Asia students being attacked on western countries following the break out. I set it because I was ashamed to be westren and it made me angry that people were behaving this way.

I didn't think the backslash would be turned on westerners in China but I was wrong. Foreigners in other cities were refused entry to shops and restaurants and, sitting safely in Lanzhou, I watched from afar in the knowledge it would not happen to me. Everyone in Peili knows the white-haired old laowei so there won't be no trouble.

Once again I was wrong, thankfully only slightly but it did give me a taste of what some Chinese people are experienced in my own country simply because of the shape of their eyes. I got it here because I have a big nose!

I only experienced two mild incidents. The first was when the local restaurants in Peili reopened with people sitting at tables far from each other. A colleague and I went to Xinghe restaurant because it is a lot close to my home. I couldn't remember if I was allowed to smoke inside so before we went in I decided to smoke a little out side. A rather large Chinese man of about fifty years of age approached and asked where I was from. “England” I replied. I couldn't understand what he then said but my colleague responded for me and then the man's friends quickly came and pushed him away inside and up to their private dining room. I found out what he was saying was that I should be in quarantine. Exactly what my countrymen were doing to China people in the UK. I was furious. I had stayed in Chinese and not run away and this was how I was to be treat? His friends did me a favour by taking him away, otherwise I may have spent the night in prison.

The second occasion was my birthday on the 9^th May when we went at another restaurant opposite Wu-Mart. No sooner had we sat in a table than a member of staff rushed over and spoke to my companion, then left after she replied.

The waitress had asked where I was came from. Would they have asked even a Chinese person that? On finding out I was English she had become agitated because the other customers were all looking and worrying I had bought the virus to the restaurant and they were thinking of asking me to leave. By then China had barred entry to foregners six weeks previously and Gansu had made anyone coming to the province from elsewhere in China isolate for fourteen days so the concern was completely unfounded and showed complete iggorance. I hadn't left Lanzhou since December.

Both instances hurt but knowing what had happened to Asian people in other countries and being worldly-wise I could only shake my head in disbelief. It hankered back to the American wild west when ordinary people lynched men and women they were convinced had committed crimes. It also very reminded me that the human race has evolved very little really in the last five hundred years.

It saddens me greatly.