[Photo provided to China Daily]

Zhou teaches Chinese painting at the graduate school of the Chinese National Academy of Arts in Beijing and at Urumqi's Xinjiang Normal University.

He hopes his students can be resilient like poplars, especially when they live in an affluent world.

"Once, a student asked, 'If ordeals make an artist successful, where could we find them?" he recalls.

"I said: 'You're wrong. It's not suffering but a goal you should look for. And when you work hard, trials come along'."