More on the Pho King Bon
CBC has a good piece on the Pho King Bon restaurant but unless there’s anything else, this is the last free publicity it’s getting from me.
Update: Radio-Canada says the owner is backing down, going to change the name of the resto and alter the menu. After getting a boatload of free PR. Is there a word or phrase for provoking free PR via provocation?
Jebediah Pallindrome 13:54 on 2020-09-07 Permalink
This is fascinating because the Viet Cong were freedom fighters combatting wreckless American imperialism, but the overwhelming majority of the people with the means to get out would’ve propped up and supported South Vietnam’s dictatorial government.
And now because the grand-daughter of someone on the wrong side of this conflict is offended a restaurant has to change the name of one of their drinks?
If Death and the Maiden were released today the Chilean-Canadian community would protest the negative stereotyping of the Pinochet regime.
If a restaurant wants to fill its menu with risqué puns that’s their business, no one has to patronize it.
Besides, if you’re heading off to Rosemere for Vietnamese food cooked up by white Quebecois guess what, you’re probably going to be disappointed anyways.
Vote. WIth. Your. Wallet.
Meezly 22:15 on 2020-09-07 Permalink
I think it’s fascinating that someone who is supposedly more educated than the Pho King Bon guy feels they can judge and trivialize what some of these Vietnamese people are feeling, just because their grandparents happened to be on the ‘wrong’ side of a political regime.
Was the new regime that overthrew the old one any better? Just because some of the people who fled were doctors, bankers, bureaucrats, military personnel, it was ok to forcibly seize their properties and send them to internment camps? and I don’t think people of means were even the ‘overwhelming majority’ that arrived in Canada.
No matter what your station in life was, fleeing a war-ravaged country as a refugee is a traumatic experience that can have repercussions in later generations. If these kids think a cocktail name is offensive because it reminds them of how their grandparents lost their homes and loved ones, then let them speak up and not let some ignorant resto owner normalize racist/sexist humour, not to mention doing such a shite job appropriating their cuisine.
dwgs 09:39 on 2020-09-08 Permalink
Also Jebediah, ‘reckless’.
Uatu 10:41 on 2020-09-08 Permalink
I worked with a Vietnamese guy who fought for the ‘wrong’ side. He was sent to a “re education camp” where he learned to agree with everything or get shot in the head. Also to work at hard labor or get shot in the head. Sometimes someone would ask for something. They would get shot in the head. The new regime didn’t seem all that better to him.
Ian 16:56 on 2020-09-08 Permalink
Well revolutions are successful rebellions, and revolutionary heroes are usually considered terrorists if their side loses. In any case, we certainly have enough Vietnamese Boat People even here in Montreal that it wouldn’t be too hard to hear some different sides to the story.
I think I’ll stick with My Canh on St. Larry – their Pho is amazing – as the name of the restaurant (beautiful soup in Vietnamese) would suggest.