Arriving in China, most visitors turn automatically into iliterate fools the moment they step out of the airplane. In a text-based culture, visitors are surrounded by signs that are meant to be read. These signs are derived from images and for everyone who is not familiar with the code all textual messages actually are nothing but abstract pictures. The photographs in this book are a selection from thousands of pictures the author made while traveling through China, wondering about the transformation of image into text and back again. It’s a book made by an iliterate author who is fascinated by the world of signs without having a clue of their meaning.