Modern life arriving slowly for coal miners

Indeed, there are four brothers from the Chen family working in the same pit together.

"All miners are like brothers, because we are always ready to die together whenever we go down the pit, and we stay together much longer than with our own families," said Chen Fengguang, the eldest of the four brothers.

Miners work on three shifts around the clock for four weeks, before going back home for three-day break.

When the coal price is high, a miner can bring home about 25,000 yuan ($4,000) a month, on average. But when the price plunges, their incomes can shrink to less than one-third of that.

Wives are obedient. Husbands are loyal. Boys and girls are brought up just as their parents were.

"I have been to big cities. But I still like working at Tongmei. Life is simple. What else can we expect?" said Zhang Guowei, a college graduate in her mid-20s who works as a tour guide at Tongmei's museum. Her grandfather died in the pit during a mining accident, her father works in the pit, and she is looking forward to marrying a miner.

"Tongmei was a serious polluter in the 1990s. Now, the air and water have become cleaner, so there is no reason to leave," Zhang said.

Tongmei is now surrounded by a large patch of barren, sunken land that resulted from long years of excessive mining.

The 1 million people seem to be living on an isolated island, where nobody wants to enter, and no one wants to leave.

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