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San Francisco Chinese restaurant's sign vandalized with insensitive graffiti

Sunday, June 21, 2020

SF Chinese restaurant's sign vandalized with insensitive graffiti

Hang Ah Tea Room in San Francisco's Chinatown is looking for the person who scribbled insensitive graffiti on their property on Juneteenth.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Employees at the Hang Ah Tea room, one of the oldest dim sum restaurant in America, discovered the word 'Japan' in permanent marker on their sandwich board sign Friday afternoon.

ABC7's Dion Lim spoke with one of the restaurant's co-owners, who says while he's not sure what the significance of 1975 is, the word Japan written on a Chinese restaurant's sign brings back memories of the Japanese attack on China during World War II.

"We were shocked and appalled," said co-owner Frank Chui. "We just thought, why? Especially on Friday, on Juneteenth, a date for celebrating freedom and equality."

Members of the restaurant hope this serves as a lesson to others in the community that even small insensitive acts can have a lasting impact on others. They're working with SFPD to locate surveillance footage from surrounding businesses.

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