To worry for Chinese business owners at the moment.

[BirdieFriendBadge]

After a couple of my friends are refusing to order their normal take aways.

I'd like to know the % of people who will be thinking twice about eating in Chinese restaurants or visiting Chinese supermarkets or China Town etc.

How do you feel about such things at the moment?

I'm a small business owner and the impact of attitudes like this could really hurt small business like take-aways and restaurants.

But on the flip side I'm not sure if I'm going to be rushing to our local Chinese bakery at the moment either. Which makes me feel bad.

I think it's all an over reaction but not entirely without logic. The authorities are.looking for thousands of people who have recently landed in the UK from the affected region aren't they? It's more likely that they are relatives visiting the owners of my local chinese takeaway than the Indian takeaway next door. Not saying it's right, but you can sort of understand it

I think it's sensible to be aware but using it as an excuse to be racist and ignorant is just unacceptable.

@HolyChickpea By that logic if the same thing happened in the UK then we'd be avoiding all Caucasians with a British accent yes ? China is multicultural country the same as ours so avoiding people who "look" or "sound" Chinese or even own a Chinese cuisine restaurant is racist.

It's just sensible precautions and even sensible chinese people are avoiding these places from the people in the community that I know

Totally agree. Chinese people tend to react like this too from my experience (SARS) and they avoided restaurants full stop and started cooking at home 😆 and definitely were wary of people who had been to the mainland....

But it’s still ridiculous. I mean, affected areas have been on lockdown so the chances are zero, really. More likely from a well-traveled businessman, from a risk perspective

China is multicultural country the same as ours

Holy Chinese propaganda. We love our 56 dancing minorities don’t we 🤮

I'm on a health kick atm anyway but I've been told by my husband that we wouldn't be allowed to order Chinese food anyway

We live in Sydney. The suburb next to ours is predominantly Chinese. We went there today to finish back to school shopping. The suburb which is normally very busy was quiet and the Chinese restaurants which would normally full of mainly Chinese people on a public holiday were almost empty.
Many Chinese people were wearing face masks and I was unable to buy hand sanitizer as it was sold out in both major supermarkets and both super drug type stores.
There are a lot of businesses in this suburb that buy up Australian products such as baby formula, dried milk and vitamins and resell in China at premium prices so I guess they have added hand sanitizer to the list of products they sell.

was in my local Chinese take away yesterday night and the woman behind the desk was commenting on how quiet they had been

Probably more down to the fact it's the weekend before pay day and noones got any money because they all got paid before Xmas

I should add that one of the confirmed cases of the virus in Sydney was a person from this suburb and another from a near by suburb so it may be causing concern in the Chinese community.

@MangoFeverDream yes and problem is some people in that area did manage to leave before the lock down or it would not have spread. Plus some people don't get the symptoms but just become the carriers

Your husband won't let you?,

WTF??!? How ridiculous!!! What about Chinese people with Fish & Chips shops? Will they boycott those also?

I had a Chinese last night. It didn't cross my mind. I am concerned about the virus because there is student programmes from Wuhan in Scotland, someone was tested at the hospital I go to twice a week. If anyone does catch it, it's more likely going to be from ATMs, door handles. WHO have advised against receiving packages from Wuhan especially if its food.

people in that area did manage to leave before the lock down or it would not have spread. Plus some people don't get the symptoms but just become the carriers

I realise that but with a billion mainlanders alone, my point is the risk is vanishingly small.

However, I really laugh at posters who claim this is racism because you know Chinese people are doing the exact same thing! Except against people coming from Hubei ...

If I thought it was so virulent that I could catch it from my local Chinese takeaway today then I’d order the take away. If it spread that easily I’d almost definitely catch it anyway and is much rather be ill now that at the height of an epidemic as chances of survival would be higher.

We went for dim sum in a large Chinese restaurant in Liverpool on Saturday. It was 3/4 full - mainly with Chinese people, but there were a few white British (as we are). It never occurred to us, not to go! Afaik, most Chinese takeaways and restaurants are run by Hongkong Chinese? Even if they had been home recently, Hongkong is a long way from Wuhan!

@LucaFritz China is a multicultural country that commits genocide against its minorities. I would assume you didn’t know as most people don’t but ffs don’t compare China’s racial policies against Britain. To be very blunt if this outbreak had started amongst one of their least favoured minorities the whole lot would have been rounded up and left to die.

@MangoFeverDream see above. Behaviour in China isn’t a benchmark of non-racist behaviour. The communist government has been killing people of the wrong ethnicity since it came into power and actively brainwashes its population against the ethnic minorities its targeted.

Behaviour in China isn’t a benchmark of non-racist behaviour

Yes but I tire of people who cry “racism” at every little thing. They need a sense of perspective and I’m giving them one.

As if most of them have ever tried living outside their safe and narrow Western bubble.

My MIL just this morning in a rural village in Scotland was saying she wanted to buy a mask. And that if she sees an Chinese person she'll run the other way and we shouldn't be buying takeaways now. I just shook my head. Though in her case she won't be boycotting the Chinese takeaway because she would never eat "that foreign Chinky muck" anyway!

I know. I know.

Well with your friends logic I’ll be the first to croak it, what with my husband being Chinese and all. Maybe I should put him in the bin? 😂

@atomicblonde30 you'll have to chuck him in the sea to be safe! Possibly burn down your house too

BBC News - Can wearing masks stop the spread of viruses?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51205344

Those masks you see people wear are not effective at preventing transmission. From the article: Dr David Carrington, of St George's, University of London, told BBC News "routine surgical masks for the public are not an effective protection against viruses or bacteria carried in the air", which was how "most viruses" were transmitted, because they were too loose, had no air filter and left the eyes exposed.

People (and to be fair I've only ever seen East Asians wearing them, and even then rarely in the UK) wear them mostly as a courtesy to others or to hide their face if they're having a bad day!

I wonder if the people who say they're avoiding Chinese businesses, because Chinese people may have travelled there recently, realise just how fucking big China is? That not every UK ethnic Chinese person comes from Wuhan or that they have ties to "the Motherland".

@Tombliwho

I have been fancying a day trip to the beach you know . . .

😂

@JaneR0chester, that is not the full quote of what Dr Carrington said - did you read the article to the end? From the Guardian today, here are the next two paragraphs following the one you quoted:

www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/27/coronavirus-how-to-protect-yourself-from-infection

• Masks could, however, help lower the risk of contracting a virus through the “splash” from a sneeze or a cough and offer some protection against hand-to-mouth transmissions, he said.

The consensus appears to be that wearing a mask can limit – but not eliminate – the risks, provided they are used correctly. That means securing them over the mouth, chin and nose, using the bendable metal strip at the top to keep it snug against the contours of the nose.*