You’re living overseas and enjoying life in a new country but then something happens in that country that changes everything. Not talking about war, but maybe a public debate, a new politician on the scene, a recession, or an election. Something that flipped how you see your new home. For better or worse.
For me, living in Malaysia all was going smoothly. An amazing country. But when COVID hit, non-Malaysians really became a target. You had vaccines prioritised for Malaysians and the government using the pandemic as an excuse to round up illegal migrants to deport them. Instilling more fear at a time of fear.
The glasses already weren’t rosy when this was happening, but knowing people whose family members were assaulted for being Asian during the pandemic, and seeing the desperate efforts of the white left to try and argue that they weren’t hate crimes, definitely made me dislike living in the US even more.