Painting an image of the past

A girl making a shirt on a sewing machine, a child using a bamboo basket to catch a sparrow are just some of the images of a group in their 30s vividly painting their childhood scenes on the walls of the old communities in Yuxi city, Southwest China's Yunnan province.

They started their work recently in Guifeng community, Eshan Yi autonomous county. The four painters have selected a wall, mixed the paint, and prepared to paint a scene of a boy buying bubble gum at a street shop.

Guifeng community was built in the 1990s and has just been renovated. The roads are smooth and the streets clean. In addition to the residential buildings that still suggest the style of a bygone era, the community's supermarkets, gardens, public toilets and fitness areas are all newly built.

Since the end of 2019, Yuxi has renovated old urban communities, and the four wall painters were invited to participate. There are two men and two women in the team: 35-year-old Wang Jie has the best painting skills, and he is responsible for the most difficult facial details of the characters; Zhong Yansong and Liu Jin are the main force of the team; Zhang Mengting is the "housekeeper", responsible for business order and outreach.