Published: 2023-12-14
What China Desperately Tries to Hide
A family that moved to Inner Mongolia with five children in search of work
A wastewater treatment plant in a fluorine industrial park discharges untreated waste through pipelines into the riverbed of the Yangtze River.
Smoke and dust cover every place in the Hubin Industrial Zone near Shizuishan, Ningxia.
Fields along the Yangtze River are polluted by sewage from factories in the Ma'anshan Industrial Park, Anhui Province.
The Tianjin steel plant is a highly polluting enterprise that has a deep impact on the lives of residents in the Shexian area of Hebei Province.
After finishing second grade, the boy came with his parents to work in the Heilonggui Industrial Zone. He earns about 16 yuan a day (about 3,100 won).
Factory workers have no immune defense system. They fall ill within one to two years of starting work. (Wuhai City, Inner Mongolia)
Massive amounts of wastewater flow into the Yellow River from the Lashengmiao Industrial Zone in Inner Mongolia.
Lime kiln workers in the Heilonggui Industrial Zone, Inner Mongolia
Xuanwei Village in Yunnan Province is a cancer village. Every year, more than 20 villagers die of cancer. Xu Li, an 11-year-old student, was diagnosed with bone cancer.
A shepherd tending sheep along the Yellow River bank.
The 64-year-old man in the photo has been ill since 2003. His whole body festered, and he cannot lie down to sleep, so he spends every day prostrate on the edge of the bed.
The 45-year-old woman in the photo has not been able to move her hands and feet for four years. Countless hospital treatments were also ineffective.
His wife died of cancer. Now he lives alone in poverty.
A 66-year-old man suffering from esophageal cancer has spent more than 200,000 yuan on treatment since his second surgery in 2004. His condition is terminal; he has a fever every day and is waiting for death.
A woman holding her seriously ill grandson begs heaven not to let the demon of suffering find them again.
A boy who lost his parents at age 13
The place where she works is a seriously polluted area. After working in the cotton fields for two hours, farmers were covered black from head to toe, as if they had been covered in coal ash.
In Shixian Village, Hebei Province, there are more than 50 existing cancer patients, and more than 20 cancer patients die every year.
Her mother died of cancer in 2008. The 4-year-old girl came to her mother's grave with her grandfather.
Photographer Lu Guang, who took these photos, drew attention for capturing the side of China that the Chinese government is desperately trying to hide. However, in early November 2018, while traveling in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, he was taken away by agents of the Ministry of State Security, and contact has been lost since then. In 2019, it was reported that his wife had been released and returned home.
2025-04-10 Note
Most are presumed to have been taken between 2008 and 2012.