The small farming village in south China's coastal city started booming into a world famous oil painting village 30 years ago, but has experienced its most depressing days in the last six months.

"When people do not buy a new apartment, where shall they hang a new painting?" said Wu Ruiqiu, board chairman of Jiyiyuan Art Company Ltd., one of the biggest companies in Dafen Oil Painting Village, Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province.

"We never expected that the global crisis would have made such a strong impact," Wu said.

The village, covering 400,000 square meters originally had just 300 villagers, currently has nearly 10,000 painters and more than 800 galleries. It has became a major exporting base for the world's oil paintings, mostly imitations of famous Western paintings, taking 40 percent of the world's market, said Ren Xiaofeng, an official with the village.

Dafen normally gets orders of 30 million yuan (about 4.4 million U.S. dollars) at each China Export and Import Trade Fair (Also Canton Fair) in Guangdong. It only got 1.08 million yuan at the 104th fair last October.

Orders of more than three million yuan could be signed by Wu's company before 2008 at Canton Fair, while he got none last time.

Most of the galleries open at around 10:00 a.m. but seldom have customers all day long. Several doors were shut and labeled "to be transferred."

"One of my friends from Sichuan Province has left here. He is an art college graduate. He came here following his dream but could not cover his house rent," said Wan Hongwei, a painter sitting alone in his Qiuyuan Art Workroom.

Wan is one of the 200 painters here who sells his own original paintings instead of imitations. His painting usually can be sold at the price of several thousand yuan but he sold only a few in the last six months while his house rent rose by 20 percent.

"I don't know how long I can stay on. You see, no customer here," Wan said, with a wry smile, in the middle of his flower paintings.

"Before the original painting began, the best seller here used to be the 'Sunflower' of Vincent van Gogh, which can be 'produced' in five to six copies a day by one worker and it can sell millions of copies in different sizes annually," said He Ke, board chairman of the only auctioneer company and major original painting seller in Dafen, the Yihai Arts Auctioneer Company Ltd..

He sells original paintings by painters in and out of the village. "We want to give chances to young painters here to be known by buyers. They might be encouraged and helped if their paintings could be sold at a pleasing price," He said.

He Ke said his business had been reduced by 15 to 20 percent in the first four months. The number of buyers did not drop in the recent two auctions but the prices and turnover rate decreased, he said.

Another company named Sunrise Art Company Ltd., which sells original paintings and high-level imitations, said they had to turn to the domestic market now.

"We used to neglect domestic markets before as we had a good share in the Western market," said Zhu Hong, owner of the Sunrise, one of the biggest companies here.

The business dropped sharply by 80 percent this year compared to 2007, Zhu said, drinking tea in her elegant Chinese traditional style yard. "I do have confidence for my future business while we can do nothing but wait."

While waiting, the famous "first person in Dafen" named Huang Jiang, who opened the first art factory in 1989 and started the oil painting business here in Dafen, turned his major business into painting training, refocusing from exporting.

Huang now runs the estate management of a big gallery house and a factory in Dafen. He had opened painting schools in Dafen and south China's island Hainan Province.

"The market still exists and orders still come but at much lower prices, so that the demand for more painters still exists," Huang said.

Huang had hundreds of students and Shanghai and Anhui Province also tried to invite him there for training.

When Huang first came to the village it was a scenic green village with hills and rivers.

"I could not imagine how much Dafen changed and I also could not imagine what it will be in the future," 62-year-old Huang said.