Documenting Pingxiang: Dust, Lungs, and Voices

Uncle Deng’s Lungs

In January 2025, I traveled to Pingxiang, Jiangxi, with a documentary team to meet coal miners suffering from pneumoconiosis. Uncle Deng, a 58-year-old former miner, welcomed us into his home. His breathing was shallow and rhythmic, like a broken bellows. On his bedside table sat a nebulizer, a bottle of cough syrup, and a faded photograph of him underground twenty years ago.

Pneumoconiosis is not a disease of weakness. It is an occupational injury caused by inhaling silica dust in unprotected mines. There is no cure. The only prevention is dust control and masks — neither of which were consistently available during the decades Uncle Deng worked. His story is not exceptional. It is statistical. In Pingxiang alone, thousands of miners share his diagnosis.

From Tragedy to Action

We filmed interviews, recorded ambient sound in abandoned mines, and collected oral histories. But documentary alone felt insufficient. Back in Shanghai, I organized a school assembly, screened the footage, and invited students to write letters to the “大爱清尘” (Love Dust) NGO, which provides medical aid and advocacy for pneumoconiosis patients.

The response surprised me. Students who had never heard of pneumoconiosis began researching occupational health policy. Some started fundraising campaigns. One class designed an infographic explaining dust-mask standards. What began as a documentary project became a small movement — proof that individual stories, told with dignity, can mobilize collective action.