An Italian restaurant in New Taipei City, Taiwan, has now apologized and changed the name of one dish that they had originally elected to call “Long Live the Nazis,” and no one seems to be mentioning that the new name is barely, if at all, better.
Rockmill restaurant had apparently intended the original name to help customers know the dish was German-inspired, because, sure, there aren’t literally hundreds of other ways to do that without effectively saying “hey, wasn’t the Third Reich awesome?” or anything (personally I like “Die Uberspaghetti,” but I’m open to more suggestions — go nuts, you guys). When they caught wind of it, both Israeli and German representatives in Taiwan had the same “WHOA, REALLY NOT OK” reactions, and complaint calls flooded into the restaurant until Rockmill decided to change it:
“When we were deciding on a name for this pasta dish, it never occurred to us that the word Nazi would stir up such controversy,” said Chao Ya-hsin, the 24-year-old manager…who offered a sorrowful apology over the restaurant’s lack of sensitivity.
Now, you might think this is the most blatant bit of anti-semitism you’ve ever seen, and that Chao’s apology must be bullshit. Weeeeeelllllllll…that’s where it gets tricky. See, the entire region of South and Southeast Asia has had a bit of an unfortunate, cluelessly enthusiastic relationship with Nazi iconography in the last decade. In 2013, a fried chicken takeaway opened in Thailand named “Hitler.” A likewise-named clothing store opened in India in 2012. Taiwan has been through this before, too — in 2011, 7-11’s sold gimmicky key chains that featured cartoon versions of vampire Hitler (bring this up any time someone tries to tell you that Japan has a monopoly on weird).
From what I can tell, there’s no real malice behind any of this, the same way there isn’t any true malice behind Japan’s awkward and bizarre relationship with African-American culture. I believe them when they say they didn’t think it would offend anyone, because no one who didn’t believe a statement that absurd would try to make it with a straight face. They just do not understand the concept that this is totally in no way OK. I can’t say I’m angry at them for this, either. My reaction can more or less be summed up thusly: