Migrant worker in East China enriches life through painting

“I have never learnt how to paint and my works are far from being professional. But I feel satisfied as long as people recognize my craft and ask for more of my paintings,” 44-year-old Hou Zhenglong said frankly.

Hou, whose job is putting glue on glasses, has done over 400 paintings and offered more than 300 of them to his workmates over the past 2 years.

Dropping out of school at a very young age, Hou became a migrant work in his hometown in southwest China’s Yunnan province. He later moved to Hangzhou in east China in 2000.

One day in 2015, Hou found out that paint could fade from one color to another and thought he could draw pictures with spray paint. The next day, he bought two cans of spray paint.

To save money, Hou collected discarded metal sheets and wrapping paper as drawing boards and painted landscapes such as clouds, oceans and mountains. His biggest ever painting is a 2-square-meter picture of a mountain and sea.

Hou mostly paints landscapes because they are simple and take less time. His former employer once bought more than 10 paintings from him as personal collections. Hou said he does not want to make money by selling his paintings.