Virus of Hate

The day would have just been a ‘bad’ day – just another daily racism he experienced here in NYC as an Asian – and not a trauma if he hadn’t taken that subway.

The subway car rattled along the tracks, the harsh white lights flickering overhead. As the train halted at a stop, Hyun slowly raised his head, trying his best to avoid grandma’s piercing eyes full of hate. Fatal mistake. The moment he glanced up, his eyes met with two black men across him who were striding towards him. He quickly turned away, but he could already feel the aggressive tension. One of the men held a beer can, still half full.

“ ‘The f**k are you looking, chink?” One of them sneered with a malevolent grin as they closed on him. He didn’t respond, his heart pounding. The awful feeling in his stomach grew larger. The second man stepped closer, his breath reeking of alcohol and stale smoke. “Where you from?” The question he had dreaded was loaded – not genuine curiosity but more like a blunt accusation.

Hyun blinked. “Canada,” he replied cautiously. It wasn’t even a lie, because he had been adopted into a Canadian-Korean family when he was three.

“Cut that crap, and say where you f***ing originally come from??” The man scoffed, his voice full of pure hate.

“I was born in Korea,” Hyun mumbled, his voice barely audible. His voice was tightening every second.

“Ching Chang Chong or whatever,” the other man spat vehemently. “You are all the same; you are the f***ing virus. The root of this sh***y pandemic.” With another gulp of beer, he snarled viciously. “Get the hell out of this country and go back to where the yellow monkeys with the virus came from!” Before Hyun could even freeze out from this absurd rubbish, the first man laughed savagely and, without warning, poured the rest of his beer over Hyun’s head. The cold liquid drenched him, the stench of alcohol already reeking from him as it dripped down his face.

The two men jeered as they sauntered off the train. Their cruel laughter echoed off the empty subway. “You heard us, you yellow b***ard! F**k off to your country.”

Hyun sat there, motionless, his body trembling uncontrollably from humiliation, bafflement, and seething fury. He was unsure whether it was the beer or his tears that stung so fiercely. And then something burst, and Hyun began crying uncontollably. The amount of pure hate and apathy he felt that day was beyond expression. Confusion. Shock. Helplessness. Anger. Despair. Rage. Bitterness. Loneliness. Everything felt suffocating, choking the breath out of him. He couldn’t breathe properly anymore. Something had been brutally murdered inside him. A wound that will be incurable.

COVID-19 wasn’t the only virus that stole people’s lives. The pandemic became the perfect breeding ground for another virus called ‘Hate’ to spread, silently infecting hearts and minds.