There’s nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning to open the whistle of an iced beer.
At least that’s what the owners of the Rickshaw Bar seemed to think when they opened a Vietnamese-themed drinking trough in Melbourne, Australia, in an area of the city known as “Little Saigon.”
Now community members are calling the establishment for its “wounded and insensitive” decorative motif, including comb glasses full of bullets, used dog tags, discarded military aircraft materials and references to Agent Orange’s chemical weapon. , which the U.S. notoriously used to remove forest cover and crops from North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops during the 20-year war.
Rickshaw Bar guests are called upon to “settle into a booth or bunker at the bar.”
“There is no smoke without fire,” another sign said.
The Asian-Australian media, Liminal magazine, shared a scathing critique of the concept on Twitter on Tuesday.
“Imagine a war in which more than a million people died, and then imagine the decision to create an aesthetic of it, to sell cocktails full of bullet shells, with an orange agent theme “. they wrote in a tweet this meant the support of about 1,500 on Twitter.
“My family still suffers from PTSD and you thought it was a good idea to take advantage of the pain.”
As of 1954, the Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, lost millions of lives, including 58,000 American soldiers, some 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers, and about 1.1 million North Vietnamese fighters. and the Viet Cong and a staggering 2 million civilians who were trapped in the crossfire.
“In a year in which anti-Asian racism has risen sharply, this bar has opened * in Richmond *, a suburb with a strong Vietnamese population, including people who would have * literally fled this war *. horrible, “Liminal continued in his post.
According to a reply to the tweet, Melbourne’s food establishments did not immediately know why the bar could be considered problematic.
“What is also worrying is that none of the editors of @concreteplay and @UrbanListMELB saw any problems. @UrbanListMELB even wrote: “no objection from us” ” they pointed out, highlighting stories showing the new establishment.
Following the reaction on social media, Rickshaw Bar has removed offensive images and ads from its news channels.
“We have removed our content and apologize to anyone who has been offended or found the content inappropriate,” the bar wrote on Instagram on Wednesday. “We have revised our tone and we are working hard to do well. Forgive any anguish caused; it was never our intention. “
Before removing the materials on Instagram, his page was flooded with criticism, accusing the bar of “trivializing other people’s trauma,” according to the independent, who took screenshots of the comments before removing them.
“My family still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and you thought it was a good idea to take advantage of the pain,” said one distressed barista.
Although the war finally ended in 1975, the Vietnamese continue to live with their remains, including the unexploded landmines that still make and kill innocent people today. Traces of Agent Orange, a mixture of herbicides linked to life-threatening diseases, including cancer, leukemia and Parkinson’s, also have persistent effects on the people of the country and the environment.
The controversy comes at the end of a year that saw renewed prejudices against Asian populations, linked to the Chinese origin of COVID-19. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, anti-Asian attacks have increased globally, with a 150% increase in hate crimes against Asian Asians only between 2019 and 2020, according to a new analysis published by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, a non-partisan research and political group.