Dump lot gets turned into graffiti park... and not a good one

I have mentioned many times in the past that the city officials and even residents tend to turn a blind eye on certain types of graffiti: Those that are on incomplete buildings, temporary fencing, or a vacant lot that is going to be built up at some point seem to be free game. In a way I kind of like how these unofficial rules are adhered to because you rarely see vandalism on other spots. It does happen every now and then, but the rule seems to be that if you do it in these particular spots, nobody will stop you. Do it on a completed building and you will be caught and prosecuted.

This can be nice sometimes, but in the case of this new place I found the work is kind of second-rate but it is still better than simply talentless, only by a bit.

The one on the far left looks like the artists had some sort of idea, screwed up early, then abandoned it. I guess that is better than putting up some absolute trash. I struggle to appreciate letter-tags or whatever they are called because to me it just seems kind of lazy. Like, we get it, you made up a font and that is the only thing you know how to do.

Here's a case of something I appreciate, even though it is actually pretty basic and something a child could draw on paper. At least it has something going on besides just letters. You may notice the smiley thing is a lot like the one that was abandoned on the other side. I guess that is their call sign.

The last one is colorful and I like the "bling" accents but the peace symbol and "fuck Trump" is seriously out of place here in Vietnam. They stay out of politics here in this country, nobody ever even talks about it (well, not the Vietnamese, the expat population is a bunch of blowhards who think everyone wants to hear their opinion about geo-politics) the locals don't talk about it because criticizing the government can get you in a lot of trouble here. You'll just be gone. So the people complaining about their governments being corrupt in the West, you don't realize exactly how free you are.

It is only a matter of time before someone who is team Trump comes along and paints over this one. It's stupid.

Whoever does this one must be a foreigner who just popped up in town because these were nowhere and now they are appearing all over the place. Something that I have always kind of wondered about people who do the tag the same everywhere that they go, if they ever are busted this would make it very easy for the authorities to bust them for a lot of vandalism instead of just a single case. In the west this person woudl be able to hire a lawyer that could convince a judge that they were simply emulating something else they saw and there is no proof they did the other ones.

The law doesn't work that way in this country. They have an extremely high prosecution rate so if you are going to do this sort of thing in Vietnam, you better be extremely careful.

In the end I guess you could say that this place where all of this is was already a disgusting and quite full trash dump so the vandalism just kind of completes the look. For whatever reason, people who own urban land here in Vietnam don't really seem to take a great deal of pride in keeping it nice but on the flip side I can understand why. This little plot of land is probably worth several million dollars and the amount of crap that is on the ground or on the walls is going to have no impact on that. Someday someone is going to come by here and put 15 apartments on this plot of land, it's just a matter of time.