Yesterday, the Mercury received a frantic email from Jerry of downtown marketing firm Leopold & Ketel. He attached an alarming photo:

Somebody took down the Hung Far Low sign down and boy am I pissed. That sign kept Portland weird. Now Portland is just a little more normal. This has got to stop. Please find out what happened to the sign. I'm sure I can get donations to help restore it. In fact I will make it the mission of my firm to do so. Thank you.

I took up the case and called the Hung Far Low restaurant, which moved out to 82nd Ave three years ago to be closer to where Portland's Chinese people actually live. The owner told me I should call the landlord, but the only cryptic information he provided was "she runs an antique store near the Chinese Garden." A half dozen phone calls later, I tracked down the landlord's son, Dan Hong, working the counter at Great Era antiques.

Hong quickly dampened my vanished-sign hysteria: the sign was removed for repairs both to its rusting frame and the roof itself. The historic 1928 sign was also a potential death trap, a rusty 2,000 pound humorous steel-and-neon anvil tourists love to pose under and the owners wanted to get it in the shop before the rains came. BUT, Hong says, "Everything is still up in the air." The sign took $3,000 to take down with the aid of a crane. Hong's not exactly sure where the money's coming from to repair the sign and then putting it up again... that could be thousands more. He hopes maybe the PDC will kick in some cash. (confidential to Dan Hong: Jerry's firm's phone number is 503-295-1918)

PLUS, he points out, the sign is totally out of compliance with current codes. Will the city let the iconic penis joke return?!

Clyde Nelson says yes. He's the guy who hauled the Hung Far Low sign to where it currently sits in a storage yard out in Scappoose. Nelson says that after he replaces the rusty sheet metal and refinishes the sign, the city sign inspector (awesome job) has approved it to be put back up exactly the way it was (which kind of annoys Nelson because he thinks it'd be smarter and better looking to replace the cumbersome frame with a modern one). One of the problems he can't fix due to something about sign construction I don't understand: tragic pagoda deteriorating. It's coming. Slowly.

Andy Ricker, the owner of Asian place Pok Pok and the restaurant Ping planned for the Hung Far Low building, makes a bold promise on the future of the sign: "It will be put back up one way or another," he promises, "We love the sign, the PDC loves the sign."

Side controversy: Translations of "Hung Far Low" vary amongst the "experts". Ricker says he's heard it means "some kind of flower blossom" but a Cantonese-speaking politician who asked to remain anonymous because he doubts his Mandarin skills says that's totally wrong and believes it means "golden tower of prosperity."