scrawl on the wall

Sha Tau Kok Road is the only road that runs east out of Fanling. It is a major highway, a dual carriageway starting next to Fanling station and leading, eventually, to Sha Tau Kok in the far northeast of the New Territories. In the urban area, it separates Fanling’s industrial zone to the south from the habitable part of town.

Because of the development that I’ve been recording recently, we’ve found it necessary to follow the cycle track network through town instead of simply following the Drainage Services access road that runs alongside our local river whenever we want to cycle out west, which is most of the time. And I couldn’t help but notice the graffiti on the walls of the industrial buildings as I passed.

This is a general view from the residential side of the road:

The next two photos are also general views, each of which shows several ‘tags’, which, as far as I understand the culture, is the name given to these works:

Each tag will have been drawn by a different person, and if they’ve been active on walls elsewhere, the same design will have been repeated. In other words, they function as a kind of signature (the nearest tag in the second photo appears to read ‘CRIS’).

Most of the graffiti here are too plain and unimaginative—or merely crude—to be worth further attention, but the next two photos are closer views of the two most distant tags in the first photo:

…while this is a close-up of the most distant tag in the second photo:

Not all the graffiti here are tags. This is my favourite among all the works here:

I assume that this is a dog, but I can’t read what it appears to be barking.

Next to the dog is this graffito, which is crude but amusing:

A short distance further east, the cycle track bends around the back of a Shell filling station, where I spotted this image:

I assume that the number refers to the Great Beast in that well-known work of fiction, the Revelation of St John the Divine, although this creature does not seem capable of bringing about the end of the world!

Much to my surprise, there is also one wall painting here, almost directly opposite the previous image:

I have a strange feeling that I recognize the person portrayed here, although from where I have no idea. And I can’t read the writing, although the last word is obviously ‘die’.The Chinese character right of the person is ‘Buddha’, while the character on the shoulder is ‘Guan’, which may be the person’s name.

In Hong Kong, graffiti are widely considered a form of vandalism, so I’ve only ever recorded one location in the territory with polychrome tags, since painted over, and what I’ve recorded here is of limited interest. However, I’m a huge fan of graffiti, and if you want to see graffiti that I have no hesitation in labelling as ‘art’, check out The Writing on the Fence, which I photographed in Manchester in 2018, or click the ‘graffiti’ label in the right-hand sidebar.