98-Year-Old Man Single-Handedly Saves His Village By Painting Entire Town In Vibrant Colors

Jun 10, 2020 by apost team

A 98-year-old veteran in Taiwan managed to save his village from getting bulldozed by singlehandedly painting the entire town. Rainbow Village now gets over a million tourist visits a year.

Picture it in your mind; you are 86 years old living in the only place you can call home for the longest time now, and you receive a notice from the authorities notifying you that your home is underway to be converted into an apartment complex.

This would anger you, right? Perhaps you would feel vulnerable and let them get away with it. However, one elderly man, Huang Yung-fu heard none of it.

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It’s been about ten years since he got wind of the news about what the Taiwanese authorities had been planning. He, however, didn’t take action then. The government approached him for a compensation agreement, but he turned it down. Over time, his neighbors gradually bowed to the pressure, and he was left alone as the developers continued to mount the pressure on him.

At his age, he had made so many memories in that village. Mr. Huang fought for his country in the Sino-Japanese War and World War II. He further fought for his country’s liberation alongside the Nationalist Party that opposed Mao Zedong’s communist ideologies.

Unfortunately, it didn’t end well for the Nationalist Party, and in 1949, he and two million other people were forced to seek refuge in Taiwan. With a new place to start their new lives, Mr. Huang was part of the team that began the resettlement of the political refugees by building the village.

While at first hand, the idea was to construct temporary settlements, over time, the village grew to become a home for the refugees and their expanding families.

This story is the sole reason why Mr. Huang could not stand the idea of a village he built with his own hands, being torn down to the ground. He narrated his side of the story to BBC: “When I came here, the village had 1,200 households, and we’d all sit and talk like one big family.” The old man continued, “But then everyone moved away or passed away, and I became lonely.”

That’s when he found new inspiration and began painting. Soon Huang’s new hobby and inspiration would land him a universally known title, “Grandpa Rainbow,” and sometimes “Rainbow Grandpa,” depending on who is relaying the message. He holds the title for using art to save his only well-known village from being reduced to nothing.

Huang traces his journey to about a decade ago when he painted a bird on his bedroom wall. He has never looked back since then and now dedicates most of his time to painting the village, which now is beautiful and bright.

The village stands out from afar and has even been spared from the ongoing demolitions. Today, the Rainbow Village is a tourist destination with some history lying beneath it. It’s impossible to take a few steps without stumbling on intriguing and colorful art.

It hasn’t been a smooth journey for Mr. Huang. The developers vowed to bring the village he tried to preserve down until one local university student paired with Mr. Huang and promised to let his voice be heard. The student captured the village and began a campaign and petition plans to help stop the demolitions. Luckily, the story got enough recognition to put everything to a halt.

“The government has promised me they will keep this house and this village,” he told South China Morning Post in 2019. “I was so happy and thankful.”

Since then, the Rainbow Village receives over a million tourists every year, according to BBC. The now 98-year-old Huang has made it his main job to preserve the village and continue painting. He starts his days at 4 a.m.

“Tourism is one of the reasons to keep it, but the main reason is that veterans’ villages are very special to Taiwan,” the chief secretary of Taichung’s cultural affairs bureau told SCMP.

Due to his tenacity, his village still stands. Today his loneliness doesn’t get to him due to the traffic that the village receives. Huang commented:

“I like speaking with them and they tell me the paintings are beautiful. I’ll never get lonely with all these visitors.”

 Grandpa Rainbow’s missions have been made a reality through donations. He also sells postcards through the help of students to raise an extra income to keep the place alive.

Is Mr. Huang an inspiration to you? Feel free to send this piece to family and friends as a true source of strength and inspiration derived from Rainbow Grandpa’s story.