Taiwanese Village Transforms Itself With Cartoon Murals

Three sisters have unleashed a new life into the streets of the small Taiwanese village of Huija with a series of colourful murals. The sisters were on a holiday visiting their grandmother about a year ago. Having nothing to do, they decided to paint the outside of her home with cartoon characters including Daruma dolls, which are a good luck charm in Japan, just to kill time. On one of the windows they painted a sign that reads: “This is where grandmother lives.”

Soon other villagers of the community started copying them and painted there own walls, and before they knew it, the whole village was filled with colorful murals. New illustrations are popping up frequently, and on any given day, artists and villagers can be spotted at work on a painting.

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Kids from some art schools are coming in to offer their services, and some residents are even hiring professionals to paint their blank walls. The spontaneous art movement has also brought in tourists and money to the area.

The village, which hardly saw outsiders except during temple festivities three times a year, now have tourists almost everyday. During the weekends, tourists mostly from Hong Kong and China flock the village. A walking tour taking in all of Huija’s murals is said to take about two hours.

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