Shanxi Coalminers

choi

Danny Lyon, Coal Comfort; In an excerpt from his new book Deep Sea Diver, legendary street photographer Danny Lyon travels to Shanxi, China in search of the world's dirtiest business. American Photo, October, 2011.
www.americanphotomag.com/article/2011/10/danny-lyon-coal-comfort

Quote:

"The following is excerpted from Danny Lyon’s new limited-edition book, Deep Sea Diver (Phaidon Press, $200, phaidon.com). Over the course of four years, Lyon made six trips across northeast China to document Shanxi province, as he describes it, the 'Appalachia of China.' Shanxi’s largest industry is coal mining.

"The government has admitted that almost 6,000 miners died in accidents in 2005, most of them in illegal mines, many in Shanxi.

My comment:
(a) I read this photo-journalistic piece at the time, but did not think the magazine will provide it online for free. Last night I was pleasantly surprised that it has done so.
(b) The title ("coal comfort") is a wordplay on "cold comfort."

(c) "In addition to the large legal mines in Shanxi, there were hundreds of small illegal ones, all bringing up the valuable black rock, anthracite"
(i) coal in China
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China
(section 1.2 Coal production: "China is the largest coal producer in the world. Northern China, especially Shanxi Province, contains most of China's easily accessible coal. Coal from southern mines tends to be higher in sulfur and ash, and therefore unsuitable for many applications")
(ii) For anthracite, see coal
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal
(section 2 Types, section 2.1 Hilt's Law)

(d) Wu Guantun Mine  山西省大同市矿区 吴官屯煤矿
(e) "Since I had tried this once before and failed, I knew what lay ahead. With a single Leica on my arm, I told Weifeng to hide my M4."

Leica M4
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leica_M4

(f) "I passed a large caged area with wooden shelving filled with cubbyholes, each one either empty or containing a miner’s light."
(i) shelving (n): "SHELVES"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shelving
(ii)
(A) cubbyhole (n): "a small snug place (as for hiding or storage); also :  a cramped space"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cubbyhole
(B) Wikipedia is same: it is an ill-defined place, not necessarily compartmentalized (or walled around)--for children to hide away.

cubby-hole
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby-hole
(C) Yet if one go to images.com and search cubbyhole and shelf together, one will immediately understand what the photographer was talking about: a cubbyhole shelf.

(g) photo legend: "The Road to the Distillery, Jiexiu"

山西省晋中市 介休市

(h) At the end of the article is "AP," which signified "American Photo" magazine, rather than Associated Press.