Artists and business owners get angry after murals get dirty in Chinatown

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The artist who created it Eight immortals crossing the sea In Vancouver’s Chinatown, I’m used to cleaning up graffiti and tagging murals. I’ve been doing it often since it was created in 2019 on the side of a building on the back street between East Georgia and Union Dori.

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But the latest and much greater tampering with their paintings last week I feel different from them and others.

“The mural has never been so badly destroyed, so my chin has fallen,” said Katharine Yi, one of the artists. “I didn’t expect this to happen because there is an unwritten rule on the street that graffiti artists don’t look at other people’s work.”

Yi and all the other artists, all members of the Vancouver group called the Bagua Artists Association, are currently thinking about how to clean the murals.

They are also considering ways to include other people in the Chinatown community, such as seniors and shopkeepers, in their plans.

Another artist, Sean Kao, said, “When I get hurt, I think I have the opportunity to talk about this ongoing problem in a more meaningful and creative way, so think about the repair process.”

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Yi, Khao, and two other artists worked together for nearly 12 hours a day for two weeks to complete a giant mural three years ago.

“It takes some accountability. They also scribbled graffiti on my sign. They can’t let people destroy their property and they don’t do anything.” Peter Lau, who has been running LiangYouBook Co. Ltd. for over 40 years in a two-story building on East Georgia Street, said.

Lau had the city of Vancouver use the sides of the building for a mural program.The city commissioned a painting from Bagua Promote cultural relief and reduce graffiti. Eight different gods floating in the waves of the blue sea and a yellow sky behind them.

This image represents the diversity of the people of Chinatown and is based on the famous Chinese folk tale of how each spirit overcomes adversity in different ways, Cao said.

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The group removed a small patch of graffiti and tags that were relatively easily drawn on the sides or background of the wave painting.

However, this tampering includes those over 5-6 feet in length and height, covering images of some gods, mostly black paint and spreading throughout the mural.

“Black is a very ominous and very unlucky color in Chinese culture. I was deadly scared to see everything painted black. In Chinatown trying to get my family and tourists back. For companies, it has a bad fate, “Lau said. “How can I do business?”

On Sunday, a 77-year-old business owner set up a table in front of the store, collecting over 200 signatures from passers-by, saying, “Graffiti on the walls of a Chinatown store destroys the exterior of Chinatown, like a hellish pattern. Looks like. “

“I felt good enough,” said Lorraine Rowe, executive director of Sun Yat-sen Chinese Gardens, who posted a photo of a dirty mural online last week.

Elderly people and legacy shopkeepers in Chinatown can’t easily talk about “what’s happening in our community,” she said.

Jordan Eng of the Chinatown Business Improvement Association said there was an effort and program to clean graffiti and tags for over a year. The situation improved last summer, but a new wave broke out from the end of the year to the beginning of 2022.

jlee-young@postmedia.com