Blue Bar to stay closed till Monday.

The Blue Bar, the Wuxi China Expat Pub, has become another center of controversy for China-World relations in 2008.

Because of local publicity about the pub being disrespectful during the Days of Mourning for the Earthquake victims, The Blue Bar will stayed closed till Monday.  On WuxiLife they have posted the following notice:

SORRY NOTICE

It is with the Deepest of Sympathy for the Victims and their bereaved Families of the Sichuan Earthquake Disaster and out of Sincere Respect for the Chinese People here in Wuxi and throughout China, that Blue Bar Cafe© will remain Closed for the Next Four Days for Mourning.

We are SORRY if People were offended by the fact that we were open for business last Monday and Tuesday night during the National Time of Mourning. It was not intentional to cause this pain.

To our Loyal Customers we also apologize for any inconvenience caused during this closure but please share with us in our grief for this very difficult time in China.

Furthermore during this period of closure we would also like to inform the public that full compensation will be paid to our Valuable Chinese Employees, there will be no loss of salary to them.

We look forward to see you all again when we open on Monday May 26, should you choose to frequent our establishment.

Once again our Heartfelt Sympathy.

The Proprietors

Blue Bar Cafe

 

For more about the controversy, you can check out this forum at a Wuxi Expat site.

 

I am afraid that there will be more incidents of this kind in 2008.  When the Olympics start in August, Chinese sensitivities will be irked again.