“And like that, poof, he’s gone.”  I am inclined to think that Otter was not in fact behind it this time.  It’s a good thing that everybody and their brother already photographed this to death, because now it’s really dead.  Alas, no one had the foresight to put up a sign in Cantonese warning that this art is “very hard to get it.”

Anyone know the story behind this Banksy whitewashing?  Any of the other Bansky pieces throughout the city suffer a similar fate?

UPDATE!!!  An anonymous commenter seems to have the scoop:

The building owner lives in Texas and received a notice from the city. Not knowing the significance of the piece, or what it was, he had it painted over. The owners of The Curiosity Shoppe live in the building and were obviously unable to convince him to keep it.

Yikes!  However, this is the kind of thing that happens when you have an out of state absentee property owner who doesn’t seem to know or care about the culture of the area in which his property resides.

Also, I was able to get a free Chinese language lesson out of this too.  Apparently, Cantonese and Mandarin refer only to spoken language, whereas written language is always known vaguely as Chinese.  So, even though most of the residents of Chinatown happen to be Cantonese speakers, that sign was nonetheless written in Chinese.  Case closed! 

Previously:

San Francisco Has Banksy Fever!

Banksy Fever Continues!

Enough Banksy for Chu?