Graffiti Love: TAIPEI
I lived in Taiwan in the mid 1980’s, when it was the Wild East. Though it was under martial law, for expats it was a playground without enforced drinking or clubbing ages. In the early years, our borough of Yonghe still felt quite third world: open binjos or gutters, at least a foot wide, bordered the alleyways on both sides. You had to step over them and be careful not to fall into the slowly moving water filled with trash and loogies and the unidentified algae that grows on such things. Taipei was dirty in a lot of ways. Street vendors sold noodles and dumplings from carts to customers that sat on red plastic stools on the side of the road; when the customers were done, the vendors would just rinse their bowls off in a basin of water or with a hose and serve them to the next customer. My mom never let us eat at those stalls. The open air markets felt like scenes from National Geographic—meat hanging, fish laid out, flies buzzing.
But no matter how chaotic and messy Taipei seemed back then, I never saw any graffiti. It just wasn’t a thing. Spray paint was easily bought at local hardware stores, which my boyfriend discovered. Our friend group was rebellious and Western, influenced by the punk rock we listened to on bootleg cassettes—the Dead Kennedys, the Clash, Sex Pistols, Bad Brains. Without the internet yet, we saw the fashion and anarchist stylings of New York on summer trips or of London Calling via the precious magazines we bought on trips “home” to the US. To this day, the street art of Keith Haring, Basquiat, and nameless punks is still an aesthetic I love.
Subway trains, New York City, circa 1980’s
In eleventh grade, four of us friends brought spray cans and snuck into a city bus depot at the end of the line in Tien Mou and vandalized a couple of buses. It was dark, and there were no watchmen. We took our time and thought it was loads of fun. The next day, we sat in town and watched buses go by, trying to catch a glimpse of our handiwork. We never did, and I’m quite sure they never let that bus out of the depot. Stupid American kids causing havoc and no doubt making extra work for someone that day.
Thirty years later, Taipei is an example of city cleanliness, no trash to be found anywhere on the streets. The MRT subway system is cleaner than my own kitchen—no food or drink are allowed on the subway cars. There are no open gutters, no piles of rubbish on roadsides. Public parks are neatly manicured with trash cans every few feet.
But, to my utter delight, there is graffitti everywhere.
Good Fortune Circle, Yonghe, Taipei
Every nook and cranny down alleyways, on the sides of buildings, on the metal roll up doors that cover every business, graffiti. Some of it is clearly paid for and part of the brand for stores, some of it is spontaneous and hidden. Some complicated and colourful, some simple and rushed.
Everyday Coffee, Yonghe, Taipei
Corner Lot, Daan District, New Taipei City
A street with a lot of Korean importers, Yonghe, Taipei
My theory is that it’s a cultural import from the West, where graffiti has always been the art of self-expression, political commentary, and the voice of youth. Like McDonald’s and Nike, Disney and heavy metal, graffiti reached Taiwan and is now part of younger generations. It’s Western source material and inspiration seems apparent to me in that much of it is in English.
I’m sure that the graffiti is reviled and unwelcome in many places, just like in the West, but here’s another funny charm about Taiwan: power washing and constant maintenance of the external appearance of structures is not really a thing. It’s hard to fight the cycle of heat and rain that is Taiwan’s tropical weather. Mold and algae and grass grow in every crevice of grout, which is everywhere, because tile is the material of choice in a place as humid as Taiwan is. You’d have to powerwash outside of your buildings once a quarter to keep up. So no one really bothers. So guess what remains?
The graffiti.
