American/Asian woman traveling alone in Rome
 

Last year while in Venice, I saw graffiti on walls that put down Americans and China. How safe is it to be walking alone in Rome as an asian american?

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it at all. Rome has plenty of Mcdonalds and chinese restaurants that you can use as safehouses in case of any threat.

If you avoid every country where there is offensive graffiti, then you will never go anywhere. Ignore it. Graffiti does not speak for everyone who lives in that country. Heck, I've seen nasty graffiti in my own city!!

Its safe. Ignore the low-life pond scum that write that trite stuff. They are small in number and bound to self-eliminate themselves.

Seule-I know exactly where you saw that graffiti in Venice-it's back there on the Fondamente Nove writ large on the wall opposite where you catch the vaporetto to the islands-you see it coming in and going out of Venice. It's also courteously written in English, just in case you don't understand Italian! (for some reason, that amused me!)

But, there's graffiti all over Venice, sadly (I realize they have more serious problems but it IS ugly). And as for the Chinese, they own/operate something like half of all the bars in Venice, so maybe there's some resentment there (I didn't see any graffiti concerning Chinese, just "Americans").

I sure wouldn't let that stop me, though. I've walked all over Rome at night, and for the most part, have had no problems (none in the historical center where tourists congregate). During the day, there's no problem at all, but you do need to be careful at night-it is a very large international city, after all.

Have seen the Graffiti in Venicem but did see a good wall in a small town near Sorrento where some absolutely foul things were written about Florentines ( I think it was soccer-related).
So I don't know how safe or unsafe Asian Americans or American-Americans are walking alone in Rome (I suspect just as safe as Scottish Americans would be walking alone in Shanghai) but folks from Florence should watch themselves around Sorrento! :)

I think grafitti in Italy is an equal-opportunity game. This spring I was in Venice around an election day and campaign posters were everywhere. Very few of the candidates' photos were left untouched.

BTW, my favorite was scrawled in a cartoon bubble by the mouth of a particularly pained-looking candidate: "Dove il bagno?"