Imagine having a small village you’ve called home for the last 37 years be taken away from you when the government plans on demolishing it. If you don’t do anything about it, you might lose that one place where you have grown up and known for so long. What do you think you’ll do to save your village? How can you make the government change their minds and save the one place you love?
Well, this grandpa found a way to solve this problem, and now his home has become a tourist attraction where people from all over the world come just to visit him, and his colorful home.
97-year-old former solider Huang Yung-Fu, otherwise known as ‘Rainbow Grandpa’ used his artistic talent by painting the entire village to stop the government from destroying it.
Nantun District in Taichung, Taiwan used to be a lovely village where over 1,200 residential houses were occupied by former soldiers. These houses were temporarily given to them by the government but as the years went by, most of its resident soldiers slowly moved away and commercial developers started buying up properties surrounding this small district. A few people decided not to sell their homes and wanted to settle in Nantun district for good, which meant that only 11 houses remained in the village – one of which was Yung-Fu’s.
10 years ago, the government wanted to tear down the entire area to further develop it and construct new buildings and apartments. The Rainbow Grandpa started painting the inside of his home and eventually started working on the exterior walls to stop the village from being destroyed.
A student, which witnessed what Yung-Fu was doing started a petition, and in turn brought attention to this small area until the city decided to keep it and turn it into a public park.
Because of his creative figures and paintings, the village received a lot of attention and is now one of the most popular tourist attractions in Taichung. Yung-Fu says that since maintaining his village art requires a lot of hard work and energy, he will continue on painting even when he reaches 100 years old.
The village gives visitors a feeling of being in a fairytale town and Yung-Fu is the source of this enchantment. Every morning, he wakes up at 3 am to start painting all his colourful creations.
The most amazing thing of this all is that Yung-Fu never had any previous experience as a painter, except being taught by his father how to draw when he was only three years old. This is why all his drawings are taken from inspirations he had from his childhood.
If you wish to say hi to the Rainbow Grandpa, you will find him still living in the village while running a gift shop and taking photos with the tourists that come to visit him. All the earnings go to taking care of him and keeping the village beautiful.
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