Children of Coal: Life After the Collapse

China’s mining colleges once promised graduates security and prosperity, but the experiences of four alumni tell a different story.

By Zhou Pinglang

Earlier this week, China announced plans to rejuvenate the country’s northeast, a vast expanse of land made up of Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin provinces. There, an economy grounded in heavy industry is feeling the brunt of the country’s dwindling growth rate.

Shuangyashan is the epitome of the region’s desperate need for a breath of new life. Lying just over 100 kilometers south of the Russian border, the city takes its name — “Double Duck Mountain” — from the pair of fowl-shaped hills that lie beyond its suburbs.

But that isn’t what Shuangyashan is known for.

Like many other cities in this area of Heilongjiang province, Shuangyashan was born from coal. Thanks to the region’s thick seams of high-quality coal buried hundreds of meters beneath the ground, Shuangyashan was once a prosperous and bustling place.

On weekends, the city’s movie theater would offer free screenings to residents. Outside, dozens of children would sled up and down the layer of ice that covered the roads. In the cold air, their cheers and laughter would resonate between the buildings, only dissipating when their parents returned from the mines at the end of the day. The smoke rising from chimneys was a sign for the children to head home for warm family dinners.

Women walk beside Shuangyashan’s mining railway, used for transporting coal and workers, Jan. 11, 2016. Shuangyashan’s is the longest mining railway in China. Zhou Pinglang/Sixth Tone

Those were the days when mining was an enviable occupation. “One black face feeds 10 white faces,” the locals would say, in praise of those who slaved away deep underground. The job of a miner was a hard one, but it was stable and put food on the table.

The same cannot be said now. Following coal’s “golden decade” — as it is commonly called — from 2002 to 2012, demand has plummeted amid a slowdown in China’s economic growth and government pledges to cut carbon emissions. Coal is dying a slow death, and it is taking cities like Shuangyashan with it.

Attending the city’s Heilongjiang Vocational and Technical College of Coal was once a matter of course for the region’s young generation. Its guiding principle of “Students first, delivery first, employment first” promised graduates a bright future in a thriving industry. But following coal’s recent collapse, the school’s alumni are facing a landscape that’s very different from the one they were promised.

Here are the stories of four young graduates from the College of Coal. Their lives tell the story of a fading city, a dying industry, and a volatile economy.

Zhang Tianqi

Zhang Tianqi was born in 1987 to an ordinary mining family. Since Zhang’s great grandfather came to the northeast decades ago, every generation of the family has made its living from the mines. In 2004, a couple of years into the industry’s golden decade, the family sent Zhang to the College of Coal, with their eyes set on a stable job at a state-owned coal company upon graduation.

Zhang Tianqi stands in the aisle of a commuter train that takes miners to and from the mining area, Jan. 21, 2016. In today’s mining communities, faces as young as Zhang’s are few and far between. Zhou Pinglang/Sixth Tone

Zhang’s five years at college were the happiest of his life. Surrounded by young men like himself, his life revolved around three things: playing sports, joking with friends, and chasing after girls. Never afraid to jump into the fray when fights between groups of students broke out, Zhang was held in high esteem by his cohorts. His reputation as a loyal, trustworthy friend earned him the role of class monitor in 2004, despite his spotty academic record.

But Zhang didn’t need to worry about excelling academically. He didn’t need to worry about anything at all. All he needed to do was get assigned to a decent job after graduation and find his own place to live.

Zhang got his assignment. Soon after graduating in 2009, he found himself sitting, in near-pitch-black, on the transportation belt that took the miners to the extraction level. To this day, he can remember every detail of the first trip. “I felt like a plate of sushi on one of those circular belts, heading straight into the mouth of a monster hiding in the shadows.”

But there was an even greater fear that hung over Zhang. “Living in a mining town, you see and hear of too many deaths down in the mines,” he says. With another of his colorful metaphors, he likens the job to Russian roulette: “You could never guarantee that you wouldn’t be the next one to get a bullet to the head.”

Zhang Tianqi stands beside the door of his grandparents’ apartment in Shuangyashan. The exterior is adorned with the character ‘fu’ — or ‘good fortune,’ Jan. 22, 2016. Zhou Pinglang/Sixth Tone

Following a two-month probation period, Zhang, to his relief, was transferred from the pits into the technological planning section as a technical supervisor. Things were looking good. As one of the last batch of the College of Coal’s students to be given immediate placement upon graduation, Zhang had got lucky. And now, in a straightforward, relatively safe job, he had his eyes set on starting a family. Zhang imagined a wife, children, and a holiday away twice a year.

That was before the industry collapsed and companies began stalling on salary payments. During a period of worker strikes and demonstrations, it was only in the middle of March 2016 that Zhang received pay slips for November and December of the previous year.

Nevertheless, Zhang went through with his plans to marry. The wedding, in late January 2016, was a chance for him to see the old gang again. Seven years later, his friends’ faces had aged, but it was the changes in their ideals and aspirations that made the deepest impressions on him.

Following the local tradition, Zhang Tianqi helps his wife-to-be put on red high heels before their wedding, Shuangyashan, Jan. 27, 2016. The couple married despite growing insecurity surrounding Zhang’s job. Zhou Pinglang/Sixth Tone

An hour before he walked down the red carpet with his bride, Zhang toasted his way through the many old friends who had come to celebrate the big occasion. The voice of Xia Yan, Zhang’s closest friend from his years at college, rang out from behind him: “Tianqi, coal is in the dumps, but you still got the guts to get married?”

As it turned out, the wedding went a considerable way toward cushioning the blow of the delay in Zhang’s wages, thanks to the copious hongbao — red envelopes filled with money — given to the couple by supportive friends and family.

Combined with the spoils of the wedding, Zhang estimates that he now has around 200,000 yuan (nearly $31,000) in savings, which he still hasn’t decided how to spend. He is faced with two options: hang on in coal and use the money to bribe his way into a more senior position, or use the savings to fulfill his dream of managing his very own 7-Eleven. The chain has always had a special place in Zhang’s heart; “7-Eleven” was the first English word he learned, and it was where he would go for midnight condom runs in years past.

Xia Yan

With the latest round of personnel restructuring at the mine, Xia Yan lost his job. Since then he’s been staying in his wife’s pharmacy, looking after the shop during the day and — as per his wife’s demands — sleeping on the floor at night to serve any late-night or early-morning customers.

Xia Yan lies on the floor at his wife’s pharmacy in Shuangyashan, Jan. 25, 2016. Xia spends the night there to ensure that the pharmacy doesn’t miss any late-night business. Zhou Pinglang/Sixth Tone

Despite the humble circumstances of his current life, Xia, 29, is well-known around the neighborhood. This is partly because his father, known in the town as “Boss Xia,” worked his way up from a low-level miner to manager of the locality’s entire mining operation. Even the younger Xia once enjoyed his own antiquated moniker: “Master Xia.”

In 2004, as the Xia household was beginning to make a name for itself, the then-18-year-old Xia was sent by his parents to the Harbin Vocational and Technical College of Power in Heilongjiang’s capital. In Harbin, the well-connected owner of a mining firm took Xia under his wing. Xia transported coal for his new “godfather,” pocketing a healthy 24,000 yuan for every load.

It was easy money, but Xia’s parents had aspirations of a higher-ranking position for their son. In 2007, they called him back to Shuangyashan and sent him to the College of Coal, where he would become close friends with Zhang. To his parents’ delight, upon graduating Xia was assigned to the procurement department of the Shuangyashan Mining Bureau. With underhand payments from machinery vendors bidding for buyers, Xia could expect to receive kickbacks of up to 10 percent on every deal. With transactions in the tens of millions of yuan, it was a lucrative position.

Xia was living the high life. The proud owner of a Honda Accord, he would turn up to Shuangyashan’s hottest clubs dressed head to toe in a Kappa tracksuit, a gold chain around his neck and a girl on his arm.

In Shuangyashan, Xia was not alone. During the golden decade, this was a lifestyle embraced by many young men.

Xia Yan is treated to drinks by friends at one of Shuangyashan’s bars, Jan. 16, 2016. Both Xia’s income and circle of friends have diminished drastically since he lost his lucrative job procuring mining machinery. Zhou Pinglang/Sixth Tone

At the time, the national average for the number of workers employed to produce 10,000 tons of coal stood at 15.8. Xia’s company was employing 48. “Children with well-connected parents would be on payroll even though they were studying out of town, and young men in their 20s were retiring and collecting their pensions,” he recalls. When he wasn’t making millions in under-the-table commissions, Xia was getting paid to play video games at home.

For the Xias, paradise came to a sudden end when a cerebral infarction left Xia’s father partially paralyzed. Unable to work, his status as the “boss” began to crumble — and his wife’s decision to leave him only exacerbated matters.

The effects of his father’s downfall were felt by Xia Yan, too. His then-girlfriend broke up with him, and apart from Zhang, who still called him “bro,” many of his friends began to desert him.

Xia’s father opened up a small inn at the entrance to the mining zone, charging 10 yuan per night for the miners who chose to spend the night next to the mines. On Jan. 27, the day after Zhang’s wedding, Xia went to visit his father with Yang Kun, one of the few friends from college who had stuck by him through the family’s troubles.

Xia Yan and his father chat with each other the day after Zhang Tianqi’s wedding, Shuangyashan, Jan. 27, 2016. Xia’s father opened a small hotel for miners after he lost his high-powered mining position following a cerebral infarction. Zhou Pinglang/Sixth Tone

Wrapped in a thick winter coat, the old man was sweeping snow in front of the small, single-story inn when they arrived. “Xia Yan is finally sensible enough to make friends with people who wear glasses,” Xia’s father said in Yang’s direction when he saw the two young men approaching. “Before, he would spend all his time hanging out with showy good-for-nothings.”

“He was just a kid back then,” Yang replied in defense of his friend. Like so many others, Yang had grown up listening to tales of the mighty “Boss Xia.” Now he struggled to reconcile that legendary figure with the disheveled old man who stooped before them.

“I used to gamble,” the fallen magnate told them. “The amount of cash I lost alone — maybe not in 100-yuan bills, but in 50-yuan bills — you could bury yourself in it.” After a brief chuckle, the three of them fell into a long silence.

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(Header image: Snow covers the ground at a coal preparation plant in Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang province, Jan. 9, 2016.  Zhou Pinglang/Sixth Tone)