Farmers becoming artists amid rural Shandong's development

With more tourists coming to the village, restaurants and shops are getting busier, providing jobs for residents.

Kong Deyun, 44, found a satisfactory job at a restaurant.

"It takes me five minutes to walk to the restaurant. I can earn around 2,000 yuan ($287) every month," Kong said, adding that she also sells the fruits and vegetables she grows to the restaurant.

"The price the restaurant offers is usually higher than the market," she said.

Li is especially glad to see so many young people.

"Seeing young people in our village makes me feel confident in our future," he said.

Shandong has been putting efforts into building environmentally friendly rural areas over the years. It has developed 1,500 villages that feature beautiful landscapes and sound living environments by improving infrastructure such as toilets and sewage treatment facilities, according to the provincial Department of Ecology and Environment.

Based on a sustainable ecology, local governments are helping enrich the lives of local farmers.

For example, farmers in Qingzhou, a county-level city of Weifang, Shandong, have a profitable sideline. When free from farm work, they pick up brushes to portray their real lives in rural areas through art.

Wang Huaqin had never thought a farmer like her could earn 400 to 500 yuan a day by painting. The 49-year-old has become a skilled painter, though she started learning just four years ago.

Several of her paintings have won prizes in provincial and national competitions, and one of her works is the first of the farmers' paintings in Qingzhou to have been displayed in the National Art Museum of China.

In 2017, she established a painting studio and has helped more than 70 farmers learn painting. Each of them can earn as much as 70,000 to 80,000 yuan every year. Wang and her team also dabbled in commercial wall paintings.

"We have been invited to draw on the walls in Qingdao and cities in Hebei province," Wang said.