The offender this time around is a Cultural Revolution-themed restaurant. The offense? Installing a “Liberation Zone” sign above its toilet. From Reuters:

“Times Gone Past,” a restaurant featuring waiting staff clad in People’s Liberation Army uniforms and decorated with photos of revolutionary heroes and maps of military battles, had taken the “red” theme too far and had been ordered to remove the sign, Thursday’s Beijing News said.

“Many customers had expressed their dissatisfaction, believing that putting ‘liberation zone’ on par with a toilet was akin to blaspheming the revolution and was an overly-casual use of the term,” the paper said.

In a country dangerously starved for the catharsis of national self-deprecation, this comes as a major blow. Seriously.

Full Reuters article here, original Beijing Times report (Chinese) here.

[Image Source: Beijing Times]