While Tahrir Square has resumed near-normal functionality for the moment, with traffic circulating, a few remaining vendors are ever ready with Egyptian flags, T-shirts with revolutionary slogans and face paint for the occasional passing tourist or the next outbreak of protest.

One of the most famous characters emblazoned on T-shirts is the face of Chinese basketball player Yao Ming, who retired from playing for the Houston Rockets in 2011, which seems like a strange choice. His face is crinkled in slightly pained laughter, and many Egyptians recognize him from the popular Asa7be comic strips on the internet.

“Yao Ming … is funny and his face is smiling. He makes you smile without even reading the post and he’s very famous in China. He pushes you to think in many directions at the same time,” said Shady Sedky, who co-founded Asa7be in 2012 with friend Ahmed Mido, in an interview with Al-Monitor on May 31. The character choice reflects Asa7be’s commitment to finding something that all Egyptians can laugh about together regardless of the never-ending political disagreements.

Asa7be, which means “friend” in Arabic, plays on the language by using the soft “seen س” instead of the hard “suad ص” of the correct spelling. The deliberate misspelling reflects the speech of many less-educated Egyptians, or the “microbus class,” who do not make the harder constant sounds in the Arabic language. The comics, who go by “Asa7be Sarcasm Society” online, use the characters Achef and Idara as a window into the thoughts and lives of this strata of society, as well as generally commenting on Egyptian society and politics.