Home UpKunming 3, the Yunnan Village of Hengdi

Northeastern Yunnan projects an arm, shaped much like the head of a dog, into Sichuan. In the muzzle of that dog lie the town and county of Zhenxiong, and a few miles east of Zhenxiong town—no atlas shows the place—there's a village called Hengdi, beautiful to visitors but brutal to residents.

The countryside around Hengdi was settled by farmers only in the last few centuries as land hunger increased in China. Rice isn't grown here at all; instead, the crops are wheat, corn—as suggested by the leaves in the foreground—and a cash crop, tobacco.

Although Hengdi is a nucleated settlement, many farmhouses are scattered across the countryside. The construction is stone, with a thatched roof through which coal smoke slowly penetrates to the sky. At 5,000 feet, heating is needed, but the coal is burned on open braziers that give more smoke than heat.

The farmers dry their own tobacco in barns like this one. All vehicles arriving in the village—and this includes buses that run between Hengdi and Zhenxiong—pass over this main road.

The choice is dust or mud, depending on the season.

Wheat, carried on tumplines, is piled for threshing and milling into noodles that are stored in every household.

Drying noodles, with tobacco-drying barn in the background.

Draconian limits on family size don't apply out here.

Bedroom, with brazier and wok.

The coal on which the people of Hengdi depend for heating and cooking comes down to the valley from the surrounding hills, where the villagers' own children produce it.

Pausing for breath, a boy leans on the pannier in which he has hauled coal several hundred steps up a dark shaft.

The mine shaft, illuminated only by a camera flash.

The crew is all teenagers, here at the dump where coal accumulates.

The mayor of Hengdi, retired from the Red Army, has little trouble exercising authority over the miners.