Damage to Chinatown sculptures shows 'so much disrespect,' says BIA - Action News
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Ottawa

Damage to Chinatown sculptures shows 'so much disrespect,' says BIA

Yukang Li, executive director of the Chinatown BIA, says eight groups of colourful statues, many depicting characters from Chinese cartoons, were installed this winter on Somerset Street West. Not one of them has been spared from damage.

Colourful statues put up in February and March to attract foot traffic

Three ceramic statues on the sidewalk. There are two bears flanking a headless man. His head sits in the foreground, having been torn off the statue. It has a hole in it.
These statues depict the Poonie Bears, a popular cartoon in China with a nature conservation message. There used to be two monkeys as well, but they were stolen, and one character was decapitated. (Sarah Kester/CBC )

Colourful statues bought to help revitalizeChinatown have been vandalized and even stolen since they were installedthis winter, and the local business improvement area wants answers.

Yukang Li, executive director of the Chinatown BIA, said there were eight groups of statues put up on Somerset Street West between Bronson Avenue and Preston Street.

Not one of them hasbeen spared.

"Every single group of the statues has either been stolen, or there's at least one structure got damaged," Li said.

A statue of a figure with a missing head.
A close-up of the decapitated Poonie Bear statue. (Francis Ferland/CBC)

There were pandas, colourful dinosaur chairs for kids to sit on, and all sorts of characters from popular Chinese cartoons. Theyhad to be shipped to Ottawa from China, Li said, adding he's not sure the BIA has the money to replace them.

"For now, unless we get external funding to replace these statues [we'll]take the remains away," he said, referring to a group of damaged pink musician sculptures, one of which had been severed above its knees.

"And we'll have two instead of four or five statues in this group."

Three yellow statues of cartoon deer, one of which is broken off at the base.
One of these three statues of cartoon deer was broken off at the base. (Francis Ferland/CBC)

Culturally important

Li said the statues were installed in February and March through a revitalization effort funded by the federal government's Tourism Relief Fund.

The community was hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, Li said, and the idea was to try and bring foot traffic back to the area and help local businesses.

"We installed these statues to beautify our street and to create multiple focus points along Somerset Street where tourists and our community members' families could have somewhere nice to spend time with friends and families and to take selfies," he said.

But more than that, the statues are culturally significant for Chinese and other Asian communities, he said.

"This is so much disrespect to our work, to our culture and to our community's well-being," he said. "I just don't understand why people have done this. It's very discouraging for us."

A Chinese man wearing glasses stares at the camera with a neutral expression wearing a black t-shirt. He is standing in front of the Chinatown logo and sign.
Yukang Li is the executive director of the Chinatown BIA. He said getting the statues put up has been a lot of work as they had to be shipped all the way from China. (Sarah Kester/CBC)

Chinatown 'in pieces'

Micheline Mathon lives in the area and said she was excited to see the statues when they first appeared.

"It was great to see. It was beautiful," she said.

Mathon said it wasawful that someone felt the need to destroy an initiative that was put in to make the area more interesting.

"It's just sad. It's not fun for, you know, the tourists coming to town and seeing our city,our Chinatown, just in pieces," she said.

Li said some security camera footage that may have captured the vandals has been handed over to police.

CBC News reached out to the Ottawa Police Service on Sunday for more details but none were forthcoming.

A split screen photo showing four pink sculptures of musicians on a city street. The one on the right shows one sculpture severed at the knee.
At left, statues of four musicians that were installed on Somerset Street West earlier this year. At right, the statues after they were vandalized. One has been severed at the knees. (Sarah Kester/CBC, Yukang Li)