Chinese question living in Europe struggling with terrorism, push to right
Zhang Lei, who has lived in Europe for more than a decade, now finds herself also living in fear and anxiety. She wakes up every morning dreading that she'll learn of yet another terrorist attack.
Last week, France was plunged into horror and shock again, for the second time in 12 days, when two men slit the throat of a priest as he was celebrating mass in a Normandy church.
This most recent cold-blooded murder added to Europe's sense of siege. Less than two weeks had elapsed since the horror of Nice, when a man of Tunisian origin killed 84 people by driving a truck through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day.
France has suffered at least 14 terrorist assaults in the past two years, in which at least 240 people have been killed and over 600 injured.
Moreover, the attacks have been widespread: eight of the 12 mainland regions of France have been hit. Yet intelligence services say many more plots have been foiled.
Spared the fate of Paris, Brussels and Nice, Germans thought they were safe. But that illusion was broken after the country was hit by four terror attacks in just one week.
Since the bloody slaughter of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in early 2015, it now seems no target is too soft for killers inspired by the Islamic State; since then, the increasing frequency of violent attacks have pushed people into a state of heightened concern for their safety.
A growing fear
Zhang Lei and her husband arrived in Belgium in 2003. At the time, she says now, Europe was her dream destination for living. Having finished her study in Europe, Zhang got married and landed a job at Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, where they have worked and lived since then.
Zhang was expecting her second child when suicide attackers hit the Brussels international airport and subway in March.
"I was just lucky to get off the train a few minutes early before the bomb went off," Zhang told the Global Times. "Those victims could be me."
Four months after the attack, her voice still trembled telling her story. "The subway that was bombed - I took it every day," she said.
Zhang said that for a month after the attack she avoided all public transportation. Even today, she said she feels nervous, and when she's on a train or bus she eyes other passengers with suspicion.
Zhang's job is to recruit students from China, and she's also involved with an international student program.
"Half of the students in my program are Americans," she said. After the coordinated attacks on multiple sites in Paris in November, "they received alerts from their embassy warning them it is not safe to stay in Brussels."
She said that many of them suspended their studies and left school. They canceled exams and rescheduled classes.
Days after the Brussels attacks, a bomb was found on campus and detonated by police. The teachers and students panicked.
During the past few months, Zhang has faced an uphill battle persuading parents in China to send their children to study in Belgium. New clients were uninterested, and those who were already considering it were having second thoughts. Now, Belgium is their last choice.
"Even my friends and relatives who planned to visit us this summer canceled their plans," Zhang said.
Life affected
For others, their work and daily life have been greatly disrupted by the terror attack. Philip He went to the UK in 2000 and worked for the European Union as a translator in Brussels for three years. He moved back to the UK last year.
"At first, every time I heard of a terror attack, my first impression was: 'again?' But now it's like this has become the new normal for Europeans," He said.
He worried that regular attacks would push an already edgy public mood toward a more xenophobic direction.
"The recent outcome of the British referendum indicated a trend of more exclusion for refugees and migrants," He said.
He changed his citizenship last year, and he now says that he regrets becoming British.
Yin Jialin, a student studying in Paris, told the Global Times that even if terror attacks abate, he won't stay in Europe after graduation.
"Europe's economy is gloomy. Many countries are struggling to maintain its weak recovery since the debt crisis in 2009 and now are in the shadow of refugees and terrorists," Yin said.
Yin said when Paris was attacked last year, he was shocked by the scale of the calamity and felt sad for the victims.
