"When graffiti is mentioned nowadays, the stylized burners and tags of hip-hop culture are often what first comes to mind. But to Yaya, the art form has a completely different lineage in China. Whether it be the propaganda slogans from the Mao era or the shady advertisements stenciled on random walls, Chinese graffiti has appeared in different forms throughout the years. But he believes that prose-based graffiti, such as the works he’s chosen to feature, is the most profound. As he sees it, the written word has long been used to share the human experience, and there’s a certain reverence to the medium. “In this era of instant gratification, people may be in need of more forthright ways of communicating. This infotech age makes the simple prose of these graffiti shorthands that much more valuable—it feels like a literary renaissance of sorts, with these written words serving as a voice for the unheard masses. They’re mesmerizing.” "
(I really like this online magazine Neocha in general, it's bilingual so all articles can be read in Chinese as well. Lots of cool stories about the art scene in Asia.)
