source: the Qilu Evening News
shovel lifted the huge forearm and raised a large number of coal ash. Coal unloaders work in this environment for a long time. 
faces the camera, and Li Daoguo, the coal miner, pull-down the mask, exposing his mouth and nose. His eyes were crystal clear and his nose was covered by a layer of coal ash around his nose. 
in the sunset, a worker swung a hammer to smash the large coal that had been frozen, and the shovel was still working in the distance. The coal in the 
conveyer belt is almost 24 hours uninterrupted, and the worker's figure is looming in the coal pile and the dust. 
should wash up before dinner. Dinner time is a very easy time in the day. Film / reporter Guo Jianzheng / reporter Chen Xi newspaper reporter Wang Guangzhao from a high altitude of dozens of meters, here is a completely black covered land. this is just one day after the new year's day. The snow in the provincial capital has not yet been melted, and the sky is beginning to float snowflakes. In the coal storage yard of the Beijiao thermal power plant, the tracks of coal transport extend far away, and the haze of the sky connects the undulating black coal hill.
50 carriages composed of coal trains slowly drove into the coal yard, and the forklift roared the coal to the ground, and a large black coal mist rose in the air. There are also residual cinders in the carriage because the temperature is too low and some of the coal has frozen.
Coal mist wreathed around. Several coal miners jumped onto the car, shovel the shovel and chill the coal together. The train stay time can not be too long, a train of more than 3000 tons of coal, more than ten minutes will have to be discharged.
the coal miner was dyed with big coal face, and the black clothes could not be separated from the background. The body is almost integrated with the coal hills. The yellow helmet on the top became the most conspicuous light in the coal yard.
for black coal workers, black is the color of survival. Cao Shenping, 46, who came from Laiwu, said, "what clothes to wear are dyed black in this job. They simply wear this one and do not change it." When everyone was joking in private, he joked that he was working on the "black road".
in addition to unloading coal, Cao Shenping also kept a coal scuttle. He will propel coal into the coal scuttle, the conveyor belt below and send the coal to the boiler.
crossed the ten meter high coal pile beside him, and stood on another coal scuttle, standing at Li Daoguo, a 26 year old boy from Yunnan. At the age of 15, he left his hometown to make a living. In the past more than 10 years, he traveled through Guangdong, Guangxi and Sichuan, and finally came to Shandong.
Li Daoguo bowed his waist and picked up the huge stones in the coal pile, which weighed down his thin spine. Li Daoguo was a newcomer in the coal yard. He was not accustomed to being choked with coal ash. He wore a purple mask on weekdays, and in less than a day, the mask became black.
there are hundreds of such coal miners in Ji'nan, who, like migratory birds, stay in the coal yard only in the heating season. Once the heating season is over, the sharply reduced coal trucks will drive them to other construction sites. On the ordinary day, Cao Shenping was running around the construction site of Luqiao in the city, while the young Li Daoguo considered to finish these two months and took the money to learn to drive a crane. "I heard that the crane is looking for a job and the money is much more." At six or seven in the evening, the meal arrived, and the dinner was a chop soup. The workers who first returned to the dormitory had already eaten their bowls. Li Daoguo, who had been tired for a day, swallowed his saliva. He had to wash it first. Coal ash is eroded into the skin, which is extremely difficult to clean. Compared with ordinary soap, detergent and laundry soap are "sharp weapons". Li Daoguo rolled up his sleeves, began to wash his hands, and the water in the pot became black instantly.
the dormitory is next to the coal yard, a twenty square meter room crowded with eight or nine workers. The workers sat around the big table, drinking the soup with pimples. This is the most comfortable time in the day, the stove is crackling, the laughter is full of small rooms, and the day's work is dispelled.
after supper, the work has to continue. The train does not wait for people. If the coal is not released in a limited time, the next train will be delayed. When you finish your work and take a bath, you will have to go to bed at ten o'clock.
for temporary workers like Cao Shenping, such days will continue into spring, and when the heating season is over, they leave the black earth and look for another living in the warmer city.