My name is Gou Dan and I'm a miner.

I was born in the village and I am a bit uncultured. I have a brother who is a year older. His grades were much better than mine so our family sold our last piece of land to send him abroad to study.

As such, I could only give up on learning and enter the mine with other kids who were slightly older than I was.

It was considered illegal, but I still took home 18 dollars a day.

To a 14-year-old, that was a huge sum, and it was also much higher than what other industries were paying.

I'll tell you briefly about the mining procedures. It's not as simple as planting and digging.

We wore a full set of uniform that was prepared by the company.

I was young at that time so even the smallest size was a tad too big for me.

We wore uniforms not because it was dirty down there, but because our own clothes might produce friction and static electricity, causing sparks or gas that leads to an explosion.

I hated the boots the most. They were similar to rain