Look askance at signs of change in appearance

Editor's note: In a campaign enforced by the Workers' Cultural Hall of Jing'an district, Shanghai, to "improve" the appearance of its external facade, the signs of the shops that rent the cultural hall's ground-floor booths have been replaced with unified black boards - one connected to another - bordered with white strips, on which the names of the shops are printed in white characters. China Daily reporter Li Yang comments:

White characters on a black background is a cultural taboo, as it is usually applied in writing elegiac couplets in memory of the dead at funerals. The sharp contrast between a black background and white characters would send a shudder through most Chinese.

That explains why the unified store decoration style has stirred a heated discussion on the cultural hall's aesthetic standards. It is good that the Jing'an district government has responded swiftly, saying that the signs show a lack of consideration and it has urged the cultural hall to address the issue.