Foo Dogs have home at Kowloon

SAUGUS – In the midst of a dogfight over two sacred Chinese statues flanking the entrance to the Kowloon Restaurant on Route 1 north in Saugus, the voices of critics, including Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, have been silenced by a group of Chinese elders.The controversy began two years ago when four Chinese Foo Dogs, which are Asian symbols of good luck, were discarded from the gates of Boston’s Chinatown. Two of the statues went to Paul Pedini, the former Vice President of Modern Continental Contractors, after his company completed a renovation project in the area in 2005, and someone in Chinatown donated the other two to Kowloon.The statues, cracked and covered in pigeon waste, were renovated and placed in front of the restaurant where they sat for over a year before the city of Boston came knocking.Menino claimed that the four original foo dogs were a gift from the Taiwanese Government in 1982, and threatened to sue the restaurant and the contractor if they were not returned, alleging the $1,800 apiece statues were simply moved off of the site, and were not to be discarded.While Pedini eventually gave his statues back to the city, Kowloon co-owner Stanley Wong says his dogs are staying right where they are, and that decision has the approval of many elder residents of Chinatown.”I do not read Chinese, but my father brought in the Chinese newspaper and translated an article to me where the elders in Chinatown say they gave us the foo dogs and they did not want them back,” said Wong. “I think it is something the younger Chinese people don’t really understand – the elders said they were given to us, they know more of the tradition.”Wong said his family, which has owned the Route 1 landmark since 1950, was approached in 2005 and offered the dogs, which they were told would be thrown away.Understanding the importance in Chinese culture, they jumped at the chance to add the statues to the restaurant’s already famous motif, even if they were not in the best of shape upon arrival.”It was a lot of work to clean them up, they were cracked and the pigeons really made a mess all over them,” he said. “The picture looks good in the newspaper, but if you take a close look at them, you can still see some of the cracks.”Wong says the younger Chinese residents have overblown the controversy, and hearing the comments from the elders solidified the restaurant’s decision to keep the statues in place.Adding to that decision was the fact that Menino proposed moving the dogs to a cemetery when they were returned, which is not the proper home according to Chinese culture.”The elders say in the cemetery really is not a good place for them,” he said. “That isn’t what they are meant to be.”Wong says he has not heard from anyone regarding the statues in quite some time, and as far as he is concerned the dogs will have a pigeon-free home in front of his restaurant for the foreseeable future.