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Rolling in their Graves


Sfsurvey_rest_big_91_image_number_250748There’s a restaurant in San Francisco callled the Mao Zedong Village Cuisine Chinese Harvest Restaurant.  I got a surreal kick out of the evil monster having a restaurant named after him—you try and save the world and your legacy is a joint in SF, CA.   One online reviewer of the restaurant had a different take:

mao zedong was a ruthless dicator responsible for the death of millions
in the cultural revolution and the failed great leap forward. why on
earth would any restaurant celebrate the death and misery that this man
represents? would you patronize Hitler’s Hamburger Haven, or Osama’s
Oyster Bar?
if the idiot owners of this restaurant did their research, they would
realize that a significant number of richmond district residents fled
china to escape communism and mao zedong. this restuarant’s name is
highly offensive.

Hmm.  Good point.  I suspect the owners have a different impression of Mao’s legacy.  The disconnect between the man and the monument did remind me of this NJ rest stop.

UPDATE:  From Nacim Bouchtia comes this photo, from a restaurant in Santa Monica:

Maos_kitchenInside he found propaganda posters. So that’s two and counting.  Restaurants named after Mao (but not Hitler) illustrate the puzzle raised by Anne Applebaum in her superb book, The Gulag—romanticizing Nazis or their regime is socially unacceptable.  Why is it okay to romanticize Communists and Communism?

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