Perry,Elizabeth, Anyuan： Mining China＇s Revolutionary Tradition

In the Spring of 2008 I visited Pingxiang, a mining town close to the border between Jiangxi and Hunan provinces. I posed for a picture in the empty plaza in front of a large revolutionary era memorial hall with a statue of a reedy young Mao in a scholar＇s gown on the steps leading up to the entrance. The front gates, however, were locked and the plaza had the abandoned air of a ghost town. In the pouring rain I hired a taxi to drive me into the grounds of the Anyuan Coal Mining Company, past another statue of Mao, this one of the older, fuller bodied statesman. I took some more pictures of a dilapidated shell of a building dating from the days when German engineers had dominated the technical staff at the mines. On a dreary rain soaked day, smokestacks across the town still billowed, adding to the gloom, and I remember a feeling of desolation and the desire to get away as soon as possible. This was the Pingxiang of my memory.