Monday, January 17, in the metro, in one of these new Azur cars. It’s late at night, around 10:30 p.m., it’s empty, Miyako is alone in the lead car. She stares into space, she waits for her station, Lionel-Groulx. The metro runs between Lucien-L’Allier and Georges-Vanier stations.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Suddenly there is a man standing in front of her. All daydreaming, Miyako hadn’t noticed him when he was making his way towards her.
“I looked up, he was standing in front of me. Often, there are itinerants in the metro. I thought he was going to ask me for money…”
But the guy didn’t have an offering to ask for, he had a case to file: “He started screaming, Miyako tells me. He started saying that I was the one who brought this virus here…”
Her name is Miyako, it’s a Japanese name. She is a Quebecer born in Japan, she met a Christian from Quebec, got married in 1999 and made her life here.
The moron in front of her had to believe her Chinese, had to believe – like so many other morons – that a person of Chinese descent is personally responsible for a global pandemic.
The guy was screaming, aggressive. Standing in front of Miyako, he was shouting at her, her, very small, very slender. Miyako was paralyzed.
The man was holding a half-empty plastic cup. He shook it in front of Miyako’s face. The guy asked, “Do you know what that is?” »
Miyako knew what it was: it was a cup of Bubble Tea, a drink made of flavored tea with tapioca balls.
Miyako thought: he must think it’s a Chinese drink…
“But it’s from Taiwan,” she told me on the phone.
Miyako didn’t have time to answer: the stranger threw the cup of Bubble Tea at her forehead before fleeing.
Result of the attack: a bump on the head and face dripping with Bubble Tea. “I was so shocked, Miyako told me, that I forgot her face, I forgot her exact words. »
Miyako met the gaze of a lady sitting at the back of the wagon, just as paralyzed as she was, while the aggressor fled.
At the Lionel-Groulx station, Miyako called her daughter, Sora, then her boyfriend. She couldn’t stop crying. They were the ones Miyako called first, even before calling the police.
I contacted the Montreal Police Department. I have been confirmed that there is an ongoing investigation. The man was masked, between 45 and 60 years old, white skin, spoke in English, remembers Miyako. The police, says her husband Christian, will try to find surveillance videos to identify and find him. They haven’t heard from them yet. Is it a hate crime? The police cannot confirm this at this time.
Christian: “When Miyako called us, she was devastated, she was in tears…”
Christian and Sora tell Miyako to come home. You’re too shaken to go to work, they pleaded…
Categorical refusal from Miyako.
“I didn’t want to leave my patients alone that night. Who would take care of them? »
I forgot to tell you that Miyako is a beneficiary attendant at the CHSLD Louis-Riel, in Pointe-Saint-Charles. For 11 years. She takes care of 25 people on the 4and stage, shift at night, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Miyako: “At the time, I don’t think anyone could have replaced me. If I had gone home, I would have left the patients alone. »
Finally, someone would have taken care of them, but this “someone” would have inherited Miyako’s patients, in addition to his own.
Then, Miyako tells me, with her gentle tone, that COVID-19 has reduced the number of visitors to the CHSLD to a minimum. The residents are sad, sometimes disoriented. There’s all the tenderness in the world when she talks about them.
Christian specifies that this case encompasses several issues such as racism, the effect of COVID-19 on people’s moods, the fact that the staff in CHSLDs is really, really reduced…
Miyako intervenes. She tells me that what she experienced is not unique: a pastry chef friend of Chinese origin, at the start of the pandemic, was yelled at by two strangers. They held her responsible for the pandemic: “R’tourne chez vous! »…
Since the attack, Miyako no longer takes public transport in the evening. Christian and Sora will drive her home. In the morning, to return home, when the cars are full, Miyako takes the subway.
At the same time, Miyako tells me that she doesn’t want people to read the column and think “that this country is bad, no, Quebec is good, I like Quebec a lot, I like Canada a lot, it there is no perfect country…”
There is no perfect country, I thought listening to Miyako, there are jerks everywhere: the pandemic has moreover acted like a huge open-air PCR test, hordes of them are declared positive for bullshit, since March 2020…
It is whispered around you, dear Miyako, that you were brave to go to work that night, despite everything, despite the bump in your head, despite this racist moron that traumatized you…
“People tell me I was brave to go to work that night,” she told me. That is not the question! It was either go or leave them alone. »
Still, Miyako, I don’t know if it’s about courage, but I do know this: you embody the best of who we are, Madame.