CHESAPEAKE, Va. — The owner of a restaurant in Chesapeake says her car was recently vandalized with anti-Chinese graffiti, an attack that apparently fit a national trend of hate attacks during the coronavirus pandemic.
And now customers are stepping up to show their support for the business.
Linda Lin Cheng has owned Taste of China for the last 20 years. The small restaurant is tucked away in a shopping center off Battlefield Boulevard. Cheng and her husband run the place by themselves.
On Sunday, Cheng told a longtime customer, Barbara Sgueglia, that someone had come in the day before and threw water on them. Sgueglia also said Cheng told her someone painted “go back to China” on her car. Cheng confirmed to a Virginian-Pilot reporter that happened to her car but couldn’t speak further Monday as her restaurant was too busy.
People have also come into the restaurant screaming words similar to what was painted on her car.
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, which originated in China, reports like this have been increasing across the United States. The nonprofit Stop AAPI Hate has received 1,500 reports of coronavirus discrimination against Asian Americans since it established a reporting center March 19. The reports include verbal harassment, shunning and assault.
After talking with Cheng on Sunday, Sgueglia posted about the conversation on Facebook and floated the idea of helping the business out to show the community’s support. The post garnered hundreds of shares and comments. A Facebook event for a tailgate to order food, and write cards and supportive messages in chalk outside the restaurant attracted hundreds more.
“My heart breaks for them,” one commenter wrote. “We are all in this together and no one should be treated like this. I’m all in on supporting this family and their business.”
A Chesapeake police spokesman, Officer Leo Kosinski, said his department was made aware of the original post about the vandalism and harassment and sent an officer to Taste of China on Monday, but the owner didn’t have time to talk.
By lunchtime Monday, the restaurant was slammed with takeout orders and Cheng and her husband were too busy to answer the phone. Chesapeake resident Elizabeth Higgins heard what happened to the restaurant and decided she wanted to support it. Her son is a sous chef in Pennsylvania and she’s heard of Chinese restaurants there seeing big declines in business during the coronavirus. As the orders kept coming in Monday, Higgins said she waited for more than an hour for her order of chicken chow mein and orange chicken.
“Right now, it’s best to support the local businesses,” she said.
Sgueglia is encouraging people to “spread the love” throughout the week, as she doesn’t want to overwhelm the restaurant. She planned to be out for the tailgate Monday evening with music and chairs. She had plans to gather money in red envelopes to give to Cheng and her husband.
Sgueglia, who owns a real estate and property management firm in Chesapeake, got to know Cheng over the years. Sgueglia hosts exchange students who attend private schools around Hampton Roads and the students are picked up and dropped off in the parking lot where Taste of China is located. They would sometimes pop into the restaurant when they waited for Sgueglia to come take them home. She described Cheng and her husband as hard workers who never take vacations and are trying to put their son through college.
She said it’s important to surround people and help them out when they go through harassment like this.
“It’s so easy to just say people are ignorant. But you don’t get a pass,” Sgueglia said. “You don’t get a pass and get to be ignorant and hateful and hurt other people because you believe somebody else did something. But I think the solution is that when we see these kinds of things happen to people, we wrap them up in love. We lift them up and we come together and we just help them and we love them through it.”
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