Draw Hope

Tongyong, South Korea

There are many ways to share hope. You can give hope by contributing, sharing, giving, and even..drawing! This is how the community of Tongyong citizens did for the elderly neighborhood town called Dong Pi Rang.

Dong Pi Rang is a small region on top of the hill full of poor elderly people who live mostly in small rooms. As the city continue to grow, because of its rising tourism and regional development, the regional real estate representatives tried to kick them out. In fact, they have already started tarrying down few houses on top of the hill. It was a good deal for the real estate people since this was a good place where you could see the beautiful mountain and ocean scenery of Tongyong. Yet, hope was there.



A group of people started volunteering. One by one. Artists, students, village people, and more started to gather around this region to give hope. It was small, but brilliant. What they started to do was drawing. Drawing! It was a wonderful project indeed. As people started to draw cute and illustrations along the empty and shallow walls of Dong Pi Rang hill town, the hill was no longer a dark village but became one of the most attractive and colorful place in the city. More contributed and sooner or later..by the time we visited at least...there was a wall full of illustrations along each path way you walked.

I was walking up the hill of this region for at least 20 minutes or more and the illustration never stopped. In fact, now looking closely they all had different themes. But what was all common is that they were brightly colored full of happy spirit. And now this region is one of the "must visit" places when you visit the city.

Each illustration goes beyond the imagination. And each illustration is drawn by different teams of people who re-draw and re-decorate this place to refurnish hope.

The illustration is beautiful. But what amazes me is how they made use of it with the reality. Compare this one with the one below.

Yes, behind the white bared windows drawn is this illustration.

Draw hope.

I smile again.