Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
And above all, where was Sad Coal Man?
Who is Sad Coal Man? Search Google Images for “Linfen,” and you'll see him. Nobody
gives his name, of course, so I just think of him as Sad Coal Man, and if there is an iconic
image of Linfen, he is it. (The silver medal goes to Sad Coal Man's older brother, Man on
Bike with Face Mask.)
Sad Coal Man's lot is to stand forlornly by the side of the road, forever staring into the
distance over our left shoulder. Sad Coal Man is young and wears a dirty brown jacket over
a dirty brown sweater, with a dirty black shirt underneath. Sad Coal Man's face and neck
are covered with coal dust and his brow is furrowed. When reproduced at a small image
size, he looks like he's squinting, almost in pain. Larger versions reveal more subtle emo-
tions. His eyes are clouded not with pain but uncertainty, with doubt for the future. Sad
Coal Man is so sad he looks like he might cry. But he can't. His heart has been hardened
beyond tears by a lifetime lived in the world's most polluted city. Sad Coal Man also needs
a haircut.
Never mind the blue sky in the corner of the photograph, over his shoulder. With Sad
Coal Man as evidence, you can draw only one conclusion: Linfen is a hellhole, a place
bereft of human dignity, where people don't even know how to wash, because there's no
point. His expression and appearance are calibrated to bring out our condescension.
It's so
terrible they have to live that way.
When I look at him now, though, I see something else in his face. Awkwardness.
Someone has told him,
Stand here. We're going to take a picture of you. Don't look at the
camera.
I'm willing to bet that Sad Coal Man wasn't thinking about the plight of Linfen
when they took his picture. He was probably thinking,
I wish they'd let me wash my face
first.
But Sad Coal Man was nowhere to be seen in Drum Tower Square. Maybe he was up
in the mountains, mining. Maybe we'd find him later, and ask him what he was thinking
in that picture, and whether he was friends with the Crying Indian from those anti-littering
ads of the 1970s.
The square had more to show us. On the other side of the semi-electric slide, people
were playing hacky sack. In this part of the world they use a weighted, feathery shuttlecock,
but the moves are the same: the inside kick, the outside kick, the chest check, the behind-
the-back. The only difference is that in Linfen—perhaps in all of China, I don't
know—hacky sack is not just a game for young men, but for people of all ages. Best of all
were the grandmothers hacking it up like they were between classes at Hampshire College.
