A Hong Kong bakery has apologized after an employee at one of its branches refused to make a cake featuring the words “Don’t Touch My Back,” citing an aversion to politicizing the simple pleasure of crumb and icing.
This will take some explaining.
The phrase in question has become something of a mocking rallying cry since it was first uttered by a police officer who was attempting to prevent people from camping out in Admiralty ahead of last Wednesday’s massive protest, which ultimately descended into violence.
As cops were checking IDs and bags, and preventing would-be protesters from leaving the station, a group of pro-democracy lawmakers turned up to try and reason with officers. During the exchange, one of the officers (who looked a bit tightly wound), suddenly shouts “唔好搞我後面!”, or “Don’t touch my back!”, wheeling around to find only a few confused-looking police colleagues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4428bug-NI
This being 2019, the video of the exchange went viral, and the statement has since become a meme (because of course it did). It was even printed on the backs of t-shirts proudly worn by protesters during an even larger anti-extradition bill march on June 16.
Phew! Ok, now that we’ve got the exposition out of the way, we can get to the bakery.
Ming Pao reported yesterday that a customer at an Arome Bakery outlet requested to have the words iced onto a cake, with the clerk there accepting the order.
However, hours later, the clerk called the customer back to say that the baker at the shop had refused to write the words because they had an issue with writing political statements on their cakes.
After being contacted by Ming Pao, the chain’s parent company, Maxim’s, issued a statement apologizing for the incident, blaming the whole kerfuffle on an “employee miscommunication.”
Oh, and they also made the cake in the end, and Arome Bakery posted on their Facebook page as proof.
https://www.facebook.com/aromebakery/photos/a.140654505959675/3160788963946199/?type=3&theater
However, Ming Pao was unwilling to rest until they were certain that freedom of speech (or frosting, or whatever) had been duly protected, sending a reporter to place an identical order at an Arome Bakery outlet in the Chai Wan MTR station yesterday.
They received the cake, phrase and all.
This article has been updated to include a Facebook post by Arome Bakery confirming that they made the cake.
