A Chinese student’s recent experience of “hate crime” and “racism” in UK.

A 19 year old female Chinese student was attacked at approximately 3pm on 25th April 2021 in Sheffield city centre for no apparent reason except for being Chinese. This highlights how dangerous the current environment is for Chinese students and generally for people of Chinese & Asian descent living in the UK.

Below is the student’s own account of what actually happened during that afternoon and the mental scars left from the attack (extracted from a questionnaire conducted by the University of Sheffield).

1) At 3: 00 p. M. on April 25, 2021, I went shopping alone for dinner. I should have been able to return to my apartment early.
I came out from the M&S to go back to my apartment after I finished shopping, when I passed a stone pier, a woman sitting on it threw a bottle cap at me. I didn't think she did it on purpose at first, so I moved on, but she stopped and yelled at me, "What do you want? Chinese? "
So I turned my head, and she jumped off the pier and walked towards me, shouting, "What the fuck do you want? Chinese? " We were very close at this time, and I was scared, so I stepped back and shouted, "Anyone help!"
I carried a heavy backpack, which was full of things I bought, and which made it difficult for me to escape. She hit me in the left eye at this time. I was not sure whether it was a punch or a slap, because it all happened so fast and my head was dizzy. I hugged my head and tried to protect my head, and called for help.
She attacked my head crazily, tore my hair, I fell to the ground, she was still attacking me. My mind was confused, I even stopped calling for help, the only thing I knew was to protect my head, because she had been trying to attack my upper body.
At this time, someone seems to have begun to stop her, but I still fell to the ground, I dare not get up, I did not know if I am safe, I dare not look up, all I can see was a small part of the ground in front of me. Then she smashed a bottle at me, the bottle burst beside me, and the ground in front of me was covered with bottle fragments.
My consciousness was always in a trance, I didn't even know if I sat up by myself or someone else helped me up. Passers-by helped me to the Boots store, where next to us.
In the Boots store, I burst into tears. I thought my left eye was very hot at that time. The clerk saw that my left eye was very red and gave me an ice drink to cover my left eye.
I didn't get back to my apartment until 9 p.m., when it was dark, and after a few hours, I thought I had calmed down, but I saw my friend waiting for me at the door of the apartment. 
She said, "where have you been? I've been looking for you all afternoon. You're not in the room. I can't reach you." 
My phone was lost in that attack, so she couldn't reach me. She waited for me until nine o'clock in the evening. My friend hugged me and I burst into tears. Seeing her made me feel safe.

2) How much damage it has caused physically 
My left eye is swollen and red. I felt my head heavy and painful when I got up the next day. 
I used to feel sick and I was thinking: Why am I suffering for this?
The woman who attacked me didn't want my money. I never even met her. She attacked me for no reason and could not predict. It was terrible.

3）How much damage it has caused mentally 
I am a very cautious and timid person. I never go out at night. I didn't expect such a terrible thing to happen to me during the day.
In 2020 and 2021, because of the epidemic, the courses in our school became online classes. I stayed in my room alone almost every day. I missed my parents very much, but they were so far away from me that I didn't even spend the New year with them. Last time my mother called me and told me that she missed me very much and she cried.
I haven't told them about that attack so far. If they knew about it, they would be very worried, but they were too far away from me to protect me, and we didn't even have a chance to hug each other.

The woman who attacked me had only one wine bottle in her hand at the moment, so she threw the bottle at me. I can't imagine if she had something more dangerous, or if I didn't have so many passers-by to help me, would I be able to go back to my apartment safely that day? will I ever see my parents and friends again?
I dare not go out alone any more, even during the day.
The day after the attack, I couldn't remember the scene because she attacked my eyes. My vision was so blurred that I couldn't even remember the woman's face. But in the days after the attack, I repeated the images in my mind over and over again, and what happened at that time became clearer and clearer in my mind. I don't know if it was imagined by my brain. 
These images are repeated all the time.

4）The support received from university of Sheffield. 
The University of Sheffield attaches great importance to this matter and is willing to provide me with psychological counseling and psychotherapy drugs. The school extended the deadline for my assessment, and someone specifically communicated with me about it.

5) How do I feel about studying or living in Sheffield ?
I was afraid to go out alone in Sheffield and even wanted to buy a helmet or a body armour to take with me, because I was not sure if something worse would happen to me and whether I would die in the next attack like this.

From the above, it is apparent that the student did nothing to warrant such intimidation and physical abuse.  Clearly it is fuelled by racist prejudice and hatred towards people of Chinese descent.

The above account details a despicable and cowardly act against a young girl and is by no means an exception. Numerous Chinese student's have experienced and reported verbal / physical abuse off the back of the Covid-19 pandemic.  There are currently over 10,000 Chinese students studying in Sheffield.  In addition there is a sizeable Chinese community that reside here like myself, born and bred in the UK.  The students alone have made a positive and valuable contribution towards the local economy. No human being deserves to be treated in this manner.  

The above incident would have been largely overlooked if it wasn’t for the persistence of my wife who works in Student Accommodation and is particularly close to her students.  The student wishes to remain anonymous but has agreed to share her ordeal on here in order to raise public awareness. 

I sincerely hope the UK government can help to reduce racist hate crimes against people of Chinese & Asian descent by implementing custodial sentences to those found guilty.  The overall objective is to create a safer environment for people of Chinese & Asian descent especially for young adults and children.  Having lived in the UK all my life, I have been subjected to occasional low level racism but this pales into insignificance compared to the above.  Being a parent to a young child, I do not want her to experience any level of racism but inevitably this will happen. By raising public awareness of racist abuse, it is my hope that these incidents can be kept to a minimum.

In addition, I hope the following actions can be adopted :- 

1. Implement harsher sentences to those found guilty of racist hate crimes.

2. A Government representative to highlight and address the current issues faced by the Chinese community in the UK especially for children and young adults.

3, Local and national media to highlight racist hate crimes to increase public awareness.