LONDON: Chinese students studying at various UK universities are going back to China amid increased ‘racist attacks’ triggered by so-called ‘maskaphobia’.
Several Chinese students have returned home while some are struggling to get seats on a dwindling number of flights.
Some are even trying to book private jets to get back to China, international according to The Guardian.
The newspaper reported a Chinese student Tao Wang as saying that he was shocked how quickly coronavirus affected the UK. He said several Chinese students are fleeing back to China. “I am yet to decide,” he said.
Chinese students in the UK believe that they would be safer in China than in the UK.
Even their families are begging them to return.
Chinese students said there have been increased incidences of racist attacks due to the Covid-19 crisis – mostly students wearing masks have become targets for racists.
According to Yinxuan Huang, a sociology research fellow at City University in London, who has been researching among Chinese Christian communities in the UK.
He said some “people in London stopped us, rolled down the window of their car, sneezed at us, and laughed away”.
He said Chinese students have experienced discrimination recently because of which they had a bad impact on their study abroad experience. (With inputs from Agencies)
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