SPRING Festival pictures are a must for Qingdao residents. To embrace the Chinese lunar New Year, local families always decorate their rooms and doors with Spring Festival pictures.

    The locals believe the pictures help bring blessings and drive away bad luck and misfortune.

    Jiaonan in Qingdao is home to a number of artists who specialize in drawing Spring Festival pictures, either originals or copies.

    Most of the pictures are free style. They usually fill their paintings with what they have seen or imagined and use bright colors.

    In 1989, Jiaonan was named by China’s Ministry of Culture as China’s contemporary picture village.

    (Jane Lai, Wen Zhang)