I was struck by the use of thematic uniforms and pictures in an upmarket Chinese restaurant, Red Guard Cafe, off Queen Street in Auckland here in Kiwi-Land. The waitresses and waiters were all in green, Maoist, military-style uniforms, complete with soldier caps displaying the red star. On the walls were a few pictures of the deified Chairman Mao from the vicious days of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward.
Look, I get giving a restaurant a specific personality, but the personality based on one of the greatest butchers and ideologues of all time? When was the last time you strolled into a trendy, German brauhaus adorned with swastikas and pictures of Herr Adolf ranting at his various rallies? (Man, one could believe in demon possession watching one of those films, and know whose “oratory skills” Eugene Terre’blanche was copying.) Then adorn the walls with a few selected pictures of skeletal victims from Auschwitz and Dachau. Finally, spice up the place with miniatures of the notorious sign, Arbeit macht Frei (Work is Freedom), that was outside the Auschwitz death camp before it was recently stolen, by putting them outside the toilets. The latter makes sense especially if you have just wolfed down a serious pork knuckle with crackling, mashed potato & sauerkraut, washed down with a copious number of Hofbraus, Jägermeisters and long island iced teas. I know. Of course the Auschwitz sign should also go outside the entrance to the German restaurant or above the cashier’s desk. The recent theft of the Nazi sign was machinated by a Swedish, allegedly ex neo-Nazi. One does wonder what his decorative designs were for the sign. It was too carefully pulled down not to have been intended for a purpose.
Anyway. So I wondered why a restaurant is being run with a Maoist theme by Chinese when these Chinese* had been dead keen to leave their country and never go back. Did it not have any perverse connotations for them? The recent Chinese immigrants prefer to endure the long hours and poor pay that comes with immigrating to New Zealand as this article reflects, which mentions the Red Guard restaurant. “Perhaps they just see the Mao decor as a joke”, remarked Michelle, Chookie’s daughter.
This got me to thinking (please don’t, I hear some readers mutter) and Talleyrand’s famous saying came to mind: “Treason is a matter of dates”. Humour can also be a matter of dates. Laughter is a way of showing that we have got over ourselves and that we are not allowing old history to have a stranglehold over us and limit us to reactionary identities we never question. So, he crows, rubbing his hands, how would an apartheid/affirmative action theme pub go down? Call the establishment Those Were the Days with the tag line ” … and still are!” underneath. Why? Here’s how and why.
Just picture “whites only” and “non-whites” tables and toilets in our jolly tavern, Those Were the Days. Mix it up with a BEE section where people get served meals and drinks first regardless of the queue. Some chairs and/or tables could have nifty, old-fashioned brass labels that declare “Non-AA seating” or “Non-white seating”. Something deeply offensive like that. This theme should be carried through into the pub area. People seated at selected BEE and “whites only” bar stools should get immediate attention unlike other stools that are labeled “non-AA seating” and “non-whites”. Now we can represent both eras of SA history. If you use “non-AA” or “non-whites” seating, regardless of your skin colour, you have to wait for at least half an hour before serving staff deign to even notice you, even if the rest of the pub is empty. And the rule will be that, whilst giving your order from your humble ‘non-whites’ spot and someone suddenly sits at a “BEE” table or “whites only” table, your waitron will immediately lose interest in you and scuttle over to the BEE/whites only bar stool squatter. You go to the back of the queue again just like the old days/new days. A sort of nostalgia with a dash of post-modernism, hey? The discriminated against seats and areas would be ideal for nursing mothers and the elderly and those who prefer to be ignored by the waitering staff as they recover from Saturday shopping and covertly sip a coke bought from elsewhere.
Car tyres could be piled up here and there with (preferably empty) petrol tins and varnished matchsticks glued decoratively to the tyres and with portraits of Winnie the Pooh beaming from the wall above.Of course, in Those Were the Days, as already suggested, people disregard their own skin colour and use whatever toilet they like and sit wherever they prefer, regardless of what the designating sign says. Man, I think people who choose to go to an establishment like this will all have a good laugh and poke fun at one another. Get over themselves. Either that or it will be absolute bloody mayhem with the blue-light bullies breaking through the doors, teargas, rubber bullets, ambulances, stretchers, the whole shebang. Either way, in contexts like this, all the customers would bloody sure as hell get to know more about how thoroughly our histories have shaped our identities and determined our reactions and thought patterns. They will learn more about the subjective, historically received vagaries which determine what is tasteful and what is in poor taste* … usually a question of dates.
Bows, rustles together his sermon notes, leaves pulpit.
****
When I lived in China, which was for five years, the Chinese were very guarded in talking about their country’s excesses and politics to foreigners. Slowly, one or two opened up to me and expressed their disgust for the Cultural Revolution. They did this very reservedly, probably because of the spying system that is still in place and certainly because foreigners are not readily allowed to take part in private discussions about their mother country and the politics, the role of Google, censorship, etc. If a foreigner says critical things about China, the Chinese will immediately become defensive about his own country and its policies, no matter how irrational or perverse China’s actions were or are. In fact, the Chinese who did open up to me and speak freely about their contempt for Mao and Maoism were often ones who had lived outside of China for several years and had developed a much broader mindset. Bear in mind China is a massive country with a huge population; most have had nothing to do with the outside world and inevitably have a deeply insulated, blinkered sensibility. I know. I was often told South Africans cannot speak English.
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