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My first trip to China was in 2017. I visited the French Concession in Shanghai, admiring the many London plane trees. I strolled the Bund, the city’s waterfront promenade, looking out over the Huangpu River. I went to Beijing to see the Forbidden City and hiked part of the Great Wall, which was far more challenging than I had anticipated.

But no matter where we went, I noticed something, even through the fog of jet lag: I was being stared at. One afternoon as I stood on a sidewalk in Shanghai, a passenger on a bus pointed at me and laughed. It was a reminder that I was the only black woman in a sea of Chinese faces, and that for many, I didn’t belong.

I returned from my second trip to China less than two weeks ago. In mid-February I went to join our team in Hong Kong, where The New York Times has been covering the coronavirus outbreak since it was first discovered in the city of Wuhan. This time, I noticed some Westerners who I thought were being insensitive toward the Chinese.