March 15th, 2020, the spring we looked forward to, turned deadly and contagious. I was doing my room chores, getting ready to eat dinner, and receiving an email from my school. The title of the email was  “School Cancellation due to the hit of COVID-19”. 10 seconds later my phone notification is spamming me like crazy. The “ding” sound continues and I suddenly feel like the last day of Earth has arrived. There was an explosion in my  group chat. This group chat was made up of students, and students usually discussed homework questions. But at this point, people were just extremely excited about school shut off. People were yelling and doing some crazy stuff celebrating the cancellation of school. Some were dancing like a 5 year old kid, some singing hallelujah like god has arrived, some were posting posts on Instagram celebrating the happiness with party emojis.  And because of school close-off New York State tests are also being canceled. Students are even more crazy like goblins now because they think that COVID-19 is their savior since it created a waiver for students. 

“WTF? Is this coronavirus thing coming true?” said John 

“Oh Yeah!!! We do not have to go to school anymore!” said Alex

“We don’t have to take the state test! This virus hit just in time! I love It!” said student A.

But I mainly ignored all the chats, the first thing I did was to go online and search up the situation of COVID-19 right now. I smashed the enter button as if the enter button had a grudge with me, and what popped out made me astonished. My face looks like I just jumped off a bungee challenge. The number of COVID-19 cases increased with hundreds of cases in the USA, mainly in New York. The second I saw the graph, my parents' voice flew into my ears. My mother and father told me and my sister to stay home no matter what. I was wondering how we going to buy food, and what we should do without income, and how I will live through it. That minute was a century long. I stared at the screen and memorized how my parents taught me their experience of their time during SARS. 

“SARS was an epidemic in China when I was in my mid-20s.” said my father.

“The society was very chaotic at that time. People were scared of going outside and did not know what they would do. Because people were extremely scared. Plus China’s economy was not good back then, and people really lost hope to live.” Said my mother.

“Yeah, but old people did not care about it. Your grand-grandparents were not so educated. They did believe that SArs was not a big deal, it was just people overreacting.” Said my father.

“What? Did they still go out? They could’ve died because of going out.” I asked with astonishment.

“Well, no, because your grandparents forced them to stay home, and they were having an argument, because of this. With some conflicts, all of us were safe. I mean… although SArs did not affect us that much, the whole country was locked down.” Said my mother. 

A minute later, I received another email from the school announcement, stating that the school was going to continue a week later with virtual learning. During this week me and my sister were panicking because we did not know how to do online classes. We did not know what kind of APP we were supposed to use. We see people from other schools receiving instructions and we do not. We received the email stating that the online learning will be in Google Meet. This was not the most important and challenging part. But the announcement made by our former president Donal J. Trump. I and my family were watching the news information related to COVID-19 and we just saw our “lovely” former president referring to COVID-19 as a “Chinese Virus”.

“Some important developments in our war against Chinese Virus…” said Donald J. Trump on the TV.

“WHAT THE HECK?!” cried my family.

“How could he say that?” yelled my father.

“This virus only came from China but that does not mean it is made by China!” I said.

“He is just an old racist man who doesn’t go online and see facts.” Said my father.

“Does he know what this would cause to the Chinese community?” I said. “He should not say this, this is racism toward the Chinese. He is just using the virus as an excuse to be racist” I cried.

From that point on, my family started to discuss how our former president was not being ethical and racist. Time flies so fast and the day passes in the blink of an eye. Night fell, and then I suddenly had a feeling. This pandemic will not pass quickly. It is a very long test.

A few months later…

The sunshine on this day was very dim. Sunlight is not that dull. But it feels like the entire sky is covered with clouds and the sun is trying its best to reach me, but the clouds are still blinding it. Ding!...Dong!…Dong! Dong! Dong! The sound of my mother making breakfast busted into my ears…. Works so much better than the radar sound that my phone makes every morning that will make me panic. I washed my face and brushed my teeth. I have my heavy ass dropped onto the chair in front of the dining table. My father was going through this website that synchronizes the data of people who are under the “red” status.  The graph shows a dramatic increase in people who are “coronized”. There is a 30,000 increase in the USA mainly from New York. We live in New York.

 “卧槽！ 这他妈美国是怎么搞的？（[English Translation]Damn! What is happening to the USA?)” said my father, with a pissed emotion.

I did not know what he saw…

  “咋的啦？([English Translation]what happened?)”  I asked with confusion .

“美国的新冠感染人数一天内新增三万人，而且绝大部分都是纽约这里。([English Translation]There is a 30,000 increase in the USA mainly from New York.)” Said my dad with stockiness.

           “好家伙，这下彻底玩儿完了!([English Translation]Damn, End Game!)” I said ironically.

A few days later…

I was getting up from bed; the day's sunshine splashed my face. I felt like clouds covering my face and cats rubbing their furry bodies on my cheeks, I was unlocking my phone, and skimming through a Chinese TikTok called “抖音”. I saw a VCR video of a Chinese lady walking on the street normally. And suddenly a white bulky dude just walked into the screen and pushed the Chinese lady onto the ground and talked trash to her. Asian hate already started because of our ”lovely” President. As I stared at the screen, I remembered that black lives matter movement. When all the people were fighting for equality for African Americans and anti-racism. There were protests on the streets yelling out unfairness for George Floyd, why is there no one yelling out for Asian hate? After thinking about that my attention was pulled to Chinese TikTok. When Chinese Tik Tokers and Chinese people saw all the videos about how Asians in other countries including the Chinese were being targeted by white people and listened to the words of Donald Trump, they were very angry. I decided to stand out and fight racism and the Chinese hate. I brought up this event in my morning meeting with my teachers and Classmates on Zoom. I spoke out what I thought, and how I was opposing Asian hate. Besides bringing up this in class. 

“Good morning guys, I want to share something with y’all,” I spoke.

“Sure, feel free…” Said the teacher.

“I just want to say how the ‘Asian hate’ and ‘Chinese Virus’ is just something that is blaming this pandemic on Asians when Asians are also victims,” I said.

“Yeah, I also saw videos online and this is just nonsense,” Said the teacher.

I also commented on videos that are posted online showing Asian hate and Chinese viruses. Justifying my country and my race. 

[Chinese Virus Video]

“This is bullcrap,” I commented, “this only came from China but we have no evidence showing the virus is made in China!” I commented 

Although people replied back with “ha! Ur only saying this because you are Chinese. Of course you are going to defend your country. Your words have no trust in it.” But I still stranded with my motherland and ethnicity. 

“Stop Asian hate! Why does this even exist? This is just nonsense!” I yelled.