I am an international student studying in Vancouver, Canada. As COVID-19 is still affecting our lives, half of my classes were still online. Having only half the time than on normal days, I tried my best to make as many friends as possible. In the first 10 weeks I was successful at meeting many students and being friends with most of them. Being an international student from Japan, I was asked some stereotypical questions and many people called me “Goku” instead of “Gaku” (Because everyone knows the comic “Dragon Ball Z”). Although most students are nice, some started to call me “Bonzai” which is probably like a mix of “Banzai” and “Bonsai”. Even though I felt a little weird at this point, I had been expecting something like this to happen. However, things turned worse from here. After 10 weeks, a new quarter started and I was in a completely new class. In the new class, I was trying to make friends too but suddenly the students who called me “Bonzai” came into my class and searched for me so that they could bully me. While I luckily was not found before the teacher came, I knew someday I will if this keeps going on. After this experience, I felt scared to commute to school and had headaches making me stay at home. I also felt anger at being targeted for bullying just because I was an Asian international student. This is wrong. This was my Asian Hate experience and please feel free to share your experience since all other stories are going to be anonymous.
My Experience
