7. The House of the ‘Snail Man’
In the late 1990s, Liu Lingchao left his small Chinese town to seek out his fortune nearly 400 miles away in Guangdong. After two decades in the city, Lingchao decided to head back home. To make the journey — which he insisted on doing under his own strength — Lingchao constructed a makeshift home about 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall. Lingchao would carry the little structure on his shoulders as he made the long walk home. It took him five years of subsisting on recyclables and discarded refuse, but Lingchao finally made it home to his small town. Something of a celebrity, Lingchao now uses his “Snail Man” persona to make a little cash on the side.
