Saigon streets suffer graffiti damage

More and more graffiti are appearing on walls in Saigon’s main streets, especially Bui Vien, a street with many foreigners, where hundreds of them can be seen, some with explicit content, on walls, electric poles and even doors.

Yesterday police caught 28 year-old Taiwanese Chang Yu Jui red-handed writing a graffito on the wall of a house on the street, fined him and made him restore the wall to its original condition.

In an alley off Bui Vien, irrelevant writings in white appear out of nowhere. Locals have cleaned them many times but they just won’t stop appearing.

Dung, a Bui Vien resident, said: "I have been living here for 60 years, and I see many careless people, especially foreigners. They come at night to eat, drink, paint, and urinate on people’s walls. Just look at these writings, they are all in foreign languages."

Graffito in an alley off Bui Vien.

"I’ve never seen such a street with so much ugly and distasteful graffiti as this one," John, an American tourist, said.

Besides the graffiti, there are also stickers with Chinese characters on many electric poles in Bui Vien.

Doors are common targets of these street painters.

"This happens every day, but we cannot catch them doing it because they only do it at late night," Nam, who runs a street stall, said.

A banh mi stall with colorful graffiti on its wall.

An electric post gets a messy makeover with colorful graffiti.

Even parking instructions boards cannot escape these vandals.

An ugly, vandalized bus stop on Pham Ngu Lao Street near Bui Vien, where an Indian woman is sitting.

Cao Hong Viet, vice president of Pham Ngu Lao Ward, District 1, said: "Security on this street will be tightened. Patrols will be organized to catch these people who damage the street with these writings. We will also get the walls repainted."