What first appeared to be an act of vandalism by a Chinese tourist at a Unesco-listed heritage site in Malaysia has turned out to be a sanctioned artistic collaboration that has nonetheless sparked a fierce public debate over cultural preservation and creative freedom.
The controversy began when a tourist, known as “Shi Shi” on the Chinese social media platform RedNote, uploaded a video of herself painting a panda on a well-known street mural at Chew Jetty in Penang’s George Town on October 15, prompting online uproar in Malaysia and China.
In the video, she tells viewers in Chinese that she wanted to “add a panda” because she found the wall “very special”.
She can then be seen painting the black-and-white animal onto the footrest of a scooter in the Girl on Scooter mural. A local resident tries to stop her, but she continues painting before posing beside her finished work.
The clip, which quickly went viral on social media, shows her handing out small panda souvenirs to onlookers and saying that the gesture helped her “complete the drawing successfully”.
Outraged users condemned her actions as disrespectful and unlawful, accusing her of defacing Penang’s cultural heritage.
