45 Fictional Worlds and Real Lockdowns; How Chinese Novels Helped Me Escape from Reality

Dania Abbas

I was 15 years old, trapped in my parents’ Oakville, Ontario house when the first COVID-19 lockdown was announced in March 2020. I was in the middle of my 10th grade of high school and was ripped away from in-person classes. I spent my 16th birthday in lockdown with my family and couldn’t see any of my friends. Overall, the pandemic happened for half grade 10, all of grade 11, and about half of grade 12.

I did indeed go into full lockdown, several full lockdowns that were unprecedented in my mind. At first, I remember that we were off school for an extra two weeks after March break. However, a couple weeks later, it was extended indefinitely past those initial two weeks, which at first, was a cause for celebration since a longer break meant more time to have fun. However, in person classes were canceled indefinitely afterwards and panic began rising; things got scary and confusing really quickly. We transitioned to online classes for the rest of the school year, hoping to be able to return to school in person by September. During this time, I remember bars, restaurants, and theatres being closed, and not being able to see any of my friends in person. It was an incredibly boring and lonely time for me, and I ended up spending time reading Chinese fantasy novels that helped me relieve my boredom and loneliness. I also struggled with weight gain at the time, since I was getting very limited amounts of physical activity; I used to be an athlete, so not being able to go to practice anymore while eating the same amount of food I used to eat contributed to that.

My greatest challenge was simply to just be happy and productive. I felt demotivated from doing any of my schoolwork, since I was so lonely, bored and trapped inside my house. I, embarrassingly enough, was unable to even find the motivation to shower and brush my teeth. I thought to myself: “What’s the point of taking care of myself, when everything is so miserable?” Nothing felt worth doing, and I struggled to find a reason to even roll out of bed. The only thing I genuinely cared about was reading my Chinese fantasy novels, which I had discovered during lockdown. They featured all of these strong characters, and interesting worlds where they could fly on swords and fight these dark magic villains; they could be around one another in person and genuinely connect. Even though these novels are technically “fantasy” it felt more familiar to me than the world I was currently living in, because at least the characters could go outside and interact with others freely. So, while it was a miserable time for me, I did discover a really interesting genre of books that I still like to this day, and I think the amount of reading I did over the pandemic also made me a better reader and a writer.

The course theme I am discussing is stigma. I remember, specifically during the beginning of the pandemic, there was a lot of universal anxiety about the virus, its severity, nature, and source. People were so afraid of catching COVID-19, that they would sanitize all their groceries before eating them and other things. Moreover, I remember that Asian people, East Asians specifically, were heavily socially stigmatized since people believed Chinese people brought it to Canada. People were afraid to be in close proximity to Asian people, and Asian people were even being targeted in attacks and other hate-crimes. My best friend is Asian-Canadian, and her grandpa was a victim of a hate crime during the beginning of the pandemic, and it was so frightening and shocking to see how stigmatized and discriminated against Asian people had become at this time. Moreover, I remember for myself, that people would be wary of me since I had allergies and would sniffle and sneeze a lot during the spring. I felt embarrassed being in public when my allergies would flare up, since people would glare at me, move away from me, and even whisper about me. I understand that tensions were high and people were simply trying to protect themselves, but the stigma I had experienced, without even having COVID-19, made me socially withdraw and feel ashamed of myself. I also tend to sneeze due to my dust sensitivity, and it became a great source of anxiety for me during the pandemic, since I never knew when a sneeze would come while I was in public.