A restaurant owner's claim the word 'Poon' is a common surname in Korea has been called out by a Kiwi-Korean, who says no such surname exists in Korean language.
Popular Auckland and Wellington eatery Monsoon Poon isn't considering changing the two restaurants' name, even though it's widely interpreted as a reference to female genitalia - short for poon tang.
It recently came under fire for using the controversial slogan "Love U Long Time", which is used to sexualise Asian women.
Although that phrase has been removed from the footpath outside both its Auckland and Wellington restaurants, the owners say they have no plans to change the name Monsoon Poon despite its inferred meaning.
Co-owner Nicola Richards told Stuff "at no point" had that been their intention, and they had interpreted the word differently - even though the restaurant once had a cocktail called poon tang on the menu.
"You will find that Poon is a very common Chinese and Korean surname, and we simply thought it worked well with the word 'monsoon'," she told the outlet.
Monsoon Poon once had a drink called 'poon tang' on the cocktail menu.
Auckland-based Minhee Bak, who is Korean-Kiwi, tells Newshub there is no surname "Poon" in Korea. There is the surname Poong, but this isn't very common, she says.
"When I read what he said, I was really embarrassed as a Korean woman chef," she says.
"You run a business that's a southeast Asian restaurant, but you don't care about the meaning of the name? It's really ridiculous. I feel offended. Don't use Korea to defend yourself."
Bak says if the owner "cares and respects" Asian women or any women, the name should be changed or they should at least consider it.
"If you are an owner of somewhere, you should respect people who might be your next potential customer," she says.
"How can you not ignore the Asian woman feeling bad, what if this woman's friend is your daughter or your relatives, your daughter's friend? Do you still want to use that bad word?"
Richards said she and co-owner Mike Egan were unaware Monsoon Poon could be read in a a disrespectful way.
"Our staff sometimes refer to themselves as 'Poonies', but it's never a name that management has used to describe our people," she told Stuff.
Egan told The Spinoff last year the name Monsoon Poon was an attempt to reflect the geography of the Wellington region. As it happened, a chef named Ming Poon worked next door to them.
"We thought his name would be a good fit, as they both end in a double o and n. We were hoping he would come and work for us, but he went on to be the opening chef for Chow restaurant," Egan said.
The restaurant's recent controversies have also been criticised online.
"All it took for 'Monsoon Poon' to take the 'Love U Long Time' sign down from their stairs was a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and some death," one person tweeted.
"Not the many Asian commentators who wrote articles about it, wrote letters to the owner etc describing why it isn't cool."
Another said "we are truly a bunch of racists for letting" Monsoon Poon keep their name for that long.
"I go past that place every day and I didn't even bat an eyelid. And yes my dumb ass knew it was racist back in 2008 when I was 18 and we have all just said nothing about it," they said.
Columnist Tze Ming Mok wrote a highly critical review of the restaurant when it first opened in 2006 and said in a tweet last year Asians had been calling the restaurant out for years.
"Asians tried to cancel them back in 2006 when they slithered to AKL from Wgtn, & they scaled back a couple of the most racist elements of their website. Now they're pretending that never happened."
