Truth Collective

In the summer of 2005 I spent about three hours walking and talking with a Taoist living in Shenzhen. In the preceding decade, he had risen with the city’s explosive growth as trade with nearby Hong Kong ballooned the Chinese city’s population to over 12 million. A successful business man, he owned several apartments throughout the city, and filled them with valuable antiques.

The Taoist, an old friend of my father’s, explained many of his views on modernization, but most fascinating was his condemnation of Hong Kong’s youth. The island-city’s population, he claimed, had been so swept up in the fast-paced demands of economic success that they had lost their way. A city without a soul (roughly translated), is what Hong Kong had become to him; a place where “modern living” had become a full-on substitute for meaningful culture.

Though he had made his argument from the perspective of traditional culture, it seems the general point holds true for hip-hop: the global brand of culture that has characterized the avant-garde of youth expression over the last four decades. In a fascinating article at PopMatters, Phillip Leung discusses the rich tradition of Chinese graffiti and its notable scarcity in Hong Kong. The conclusion below:

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Yet there must be a young artist in the city that aspires to follow in Tsang’s footsteps, right? After all, Tsang possessed an inspiring story of influencing a new generation of designers and filmmakers, despite lacking art credentials himself. His unique style of obscure, pattern based Chinese calligraphy converted even the harshest of critics, including a member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council. Dom, founder of local art group Start From Zero, points out that many artists try out graffiti in Hong Kong, but few stick with it. He’s noticed no increase in the number of graffiti artists since he first started eight years ago and estimates that for every ten street artists in the city who pick up the spray can, nine quit within a year.  “Where are all the local graffiti artists? Where are the local DJs? Where are the local hard-core bands?” wonders Kramer, the gallery owner.

Dom bemoans an “attention disorder” that plagues many local artists. According to him, they try only because of its stereotypically rebellious connotations. But the stagnation in creativity can also be attributed to Hong Kong’s laissez-faire capitalism. Chan Hoi-Man, professor at the department of sociology at Hong Kong’s Chinese University, says, “It’s a question of choice, if the population spends more time and attention on economic affairs, obviously culture or cultural creativity is de-emphasized”. By having spent too much time on economic affairs, the populace of Hong Kong has ended up defining good art by its price tag. “In the whole of Hong Kong, things are measured by their visible, immediate, and concrete outcome,” explains Chan. And to indulge in ambitious ideas like persistently spray-painting walls, where there is no immediate monetary gain, is deemed crazy by local standards.

Graffiti, an art form that is developed as subversive commentary, should be thriving in Hong Kong by now. All the signs of suppression are there—the divides in social class, the thriving materialistic culture, and political antagonism with Mainland China. Yet not much noise has been made recently to address these issues. If the city continues its course of pure economic pursuit, those same artists who have been ignored by following the rules set up by government, will soon reach a breaking point. Hopefully, someone will come forward to announce their displeasure by developing uncompromising works of graffiti. Hopefully, someone as crazy as Tsang Tsou-choi.