It took me 45 minutes by subway but I arrived in Dafen with
my chinese note in hand asking to point me in the direction of Dafen village
and I got there with minimum fuss. The village is full of quaint little shops loaded with paintings and art supplies. A lot of the painters are instantly
recognisable but mingled in is some original work. I wandered around admiring their work and
watched some painters industriously copying from photos. I was given a full
tour of a 3 storey warehouse absolutely full of paintings but I wasn’t really
tempted to buy anything, there is only one masterpiece I would really like to
own and luckily I didn’t see it. After a visit to Wal Mart and lunch I set off
back home. Even though I hardly saw any other westerners the locals are a lot
more accepting and didn’t try to engage me in conversation like in Yangshuo.
Then when I boarded the subway a group of teenage girls spotted me and tried
out some of their basic English on me, this lead to everyone having a turn at
being photographed with me but besides that I was fairly inconspicuous.
