In a Facebook post today, it said it has tried to restore the Chinese characters for Jalan Main Bazaar, Wayang Street and Jalan Green Hill but they have been removed by the local authorities.

The post has received more than 3,000 shares and 8,000 comments by netizens.

One urged City Hall to take action against DAP Youth for trying to restore the Chinese characters on the signages.

Another said there was no need to fight over the languages on road signs so long as the street names were in Bahasa Malaysia.

Sarawak DAP committee member Julian Tan claimed that several road signs in the city had Chinese characters in the past.

“The characters were later removed without us realising it. That was why we tried to restore them,” he told FMT.

According to him, it was part of Sarawak’s culture to have dual languages for road signs at appropriate places.

“We chose to restore some of the Chinese characters for the signages for Jalan Main Bazaar, Wayang Street and Jalan Green Hill because a lot of businesses there are run by the Chinese community.

“This is especially so for Jalan Main Bazaar, which is a major tourist spot with the oldest Chinese temple in Kuching located there,” he said.