The impact of the coronavirus originating from the Chinese city of Wuhan has been felt across the world as countries scramble to contain its spread.
While containment efforts continue, the spread of the virus across borders has generated a parallel outbreak of viral misinformation, anti-Chinese sentiment and outright xenophobia.
Reports of an increase in anti-Chinese sentiment has been documented as far as Europe and North America.
Members of the Chinese community in France have even been posted their experiences of racism, which has given rise to the #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus, meaning 'I am not a virus'.
Dong Xing, our SBS Mandarin colleague, migrated to Australia more than 10 years ago.
He has witnessed firsthand the racism that his community in Australia continues to endure due to the spread of misinformation about the virus, so he can help us dispel some of these myths.
1 - ‘Chinese people wear face masks only to protect themselves’
The wearing of face masks is a common practice in many East Asian countries and relates to an obsession with social courtesy.
Dong says there is a common misconception that Asians in Australia only wear face masks to protect themselves from viruses, but it’s quite the opposite.
“People wear them to protect others. They also wear masks to avoid pollution or infection," he says.
A lady wears a medical mask. Source: Nicolò Lazzati
“Also, it is common for the health authorities in densely-populated countries like China and Japan to recommend public to wear face mask to prevent respiratory tract infection.
“So, the purpose of wearing it is to protect themselves as well as others in the community.”
2 - ‘All Chinese people have the coronavirus’
Not all Asians are Chinese and not all Chinese people carry the coronavirus. It’s as simple as that.
As of the publication of this article, official statistics in China show that there are around 40,500 cases of the virus recorded with 910 deaths, and more than 3,000 people having recovered.
If we put this in perspective, the number of people infected with the coronavirus in China is less than 0.004 per cent of China's total population.
To understand the scale of that, let’s assume the outbreak had developed in Australia with those proportions. Using the same proportions, the total number of cases would be less than 1000 people from our population of more than 25 million.
3 - ‘All Asians are Chinese’
This myth is easily debunked.
Asia is the largest continent in the world by area and population. There are 48 countries in the continent, including China, Japan, Korea, India, and parts of the Middle East.
According to World Atlas, the population of Asia is estimated to be 4.516 billion people.
The population of China is estimated at 1.38 billion, which means that the country amounts to around 30 per cent of the continent’s population.
In Australia, residents identifying themselves as having Chinese ancestry made up 5.6 per cent of the population, numbered at 1,213,903 in the 2016 census.
The census also highlighted that 123,017 Australia residents identified themselves as being of Korean ancestry, while a further 250,490 were Vietnamese-born.
“Saying that all Chinese are Asians brings to my mind this tweet by Aya, who explained that insulting an Asian because of the virus, is like insulting a Muslim because of the ‘terrorist’ attacks.”
“With that being said, I would like to emphasise that trying to distance other Asian communities from the Chinese one doesn’t help in stopping the racism. People need to understand that the virus cannot be used as an excuse to be racist.”
4 - ‘Chinese people eat bats and other exotic animals all the time’
Whether the consumption of bats caused the coronavirus outbreak or not is still being verified.
It is believed that the origin of the virus came from illegally sold wildlife at a seafood market in Wuhan.
Dong says that not all Chinese people eat bats, explaining that the practice is among a host of "unorthodox” eating habits in the country which are associated with different ethnicities, cultures and geographic locations.
China is a vast country with diverse lifestyles and habits.
The small percentage of people eating what some might consider bizarre foods is similar to Lebanese people eating raw beef or Italians eating Casu marzu, a traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese that contains live insect larvae.
That said, given that it is not the first time deadly virus jumps from wild animals to humans, Dong believes that the Chinese government needs to do more to control and stop the illegal consumption and trafficking of wild animals.
As for the footage that was circulated of and linking it to the outbreak of the virus, it turned out to be a video shot three years ago in Micronesia, not China.
5 - ‘Chinese people are all the same’
"Since we were in kindergarten, we've been taught that China has 56 ethnic groups and we are all brothers," Dong says. "Even the Chinese currency has five different languages on it."
Among these groups, Han Chinese account for around 91 per cent of the population, while the other 55 make up the remaining 8.41 per cent.
The 55 ethnic groups include: Achang, Bai, Bonan, Bouyei, Blang, Dai, Daur, Deang, Dong, Dongxiang, Dulong, Ewenki, Gaoshan, Gelao, Hani, Hezhe, Hui, Jing, Jingpo, Jinuo, Kazak, Kirgiz, Korean, Lahu, Li, Lisu, Luoba, Manchu, Maonan, Menba, Miao, Mongolian, Mulao, Naxi, Nu, Oroqen, Ozbek, Pumi, Qiang, Russian, Salar, She, Shui, Tajik, Tatar, Tibetan, Tu, Tujia, Uigur, Wa, Xibe, Yao, Yi, Yugur, Zhuang.
