Women have played a crucial role in Taiwan’s mining industry over the past century, toiling underground before the government banned it in 1964 and then doing grueling work above ground for a fraction of the pay.

• By Han Cheung / Contributing journalist

October 14 to October 20

After working above ground for two years, Chang Kui (張桂) first entered the Yamamoto coal mine at the age of 16. It was 1943, and as many men had joined the war effort, an increasing number of women went underground to take part in the war effort. because of the physically exhausting and dangerous work.

“As soon as the carts arrived, I rode on them to earn money; I wasn’t even afraid,” Chang tells his granddaughter Tai Po-fen (戴伯芬) in The Last Miner: The Story of Chang Kui (末代女礦工: 張桂故事), available on the website Frontline Fellowship. site. “The first time I went in, because the roof of the mine was so low, I hit my head on a beam. »

Photo courtesy of New Taipei City Cultural Affairs Department

Chang’s job was to push the minecarts through the tunnels, which was particularly taxing for his small frame of less than 150 cm. She worked barefoot so it would be easier to use her feet to slow the car downhill, and like the men, she urinated where she stood – it was so dark no one could see anyway, she remembers. She worked during her period, emerging from suffocating faces with her pants covered in blood.

At that time, Tai writes, Japanese miners earned about 1.8 times more than their Taiwanese counterparts, and Taiwanese men earned between 1.3 and 2.1 times more than women. If the mine did not perform well, women and children were the first to see their working hours reduced.

The Republic of China (ROC) government banned women from working in mines in 1964. Mortality rates were high, and many children in mining towns lost both parents in accidents. Authorities hoped that at least the mother would survive. However, women continued to work outside the mines, performing tasks such as hauling ore and washing coal – and some mines continued to send women illegally underground.

Photo: ANC

The often overlooked role of women in mining has received much attention in recent years. The New Taipei City government launched a program in 2020 to promote the history of women miners in Jingtong Township (菁桐) of Pingsi District (平溪). Tai turned her article into a book in March, and earlier this week, the Liberty Times (the sister paper of the Taipei Times) reported that nine former female Jingtong mine workers had trained as tour guides.

WOMEN IN MINES

Photo courtesy of New Taipei City Cultural Affairs Department

Although small in number, women had worked in the mines since at least the turn of the century, often alongside their husbands. Although they played more of a supporting role, they took part in all the tasks performed by the men, Tai writes. Many also contributed to surface operations such as coal transportation and preparation; in addition, they were often asked to cook, boil bath water, and do other odd jobs.

In 1928, women were banned from illegal work in Japan, but colonizers seemed to encourage it in Taiwan, Tai writes. The Japanese-owned Jinbaoli (金包里) gold mine in Wanli District (萬里) of New Taipei City, for example, publicly praised and rewarded a married couple for working underground together.

As the war worsened and supplies dwindled, Chang continued to work in a constant state of hunger. The situation was not much better after the war: no matter who ruled Taiwan, Chang said, it still rarely had enough to eat.

Photo courtesy of New Taipei City Cultural Affairs Department

She left the Yamamoto mine during its temporary closure after the departure of the Japanese. In 1955, the prominent Lee family (瑞芳李家) purchased the mine and renamed it Haishan (海山). In 1958, they opened a new tunnel in Chang’s hometown of Matsutien (媽祖田) in Tucheng District (土城) of New Taipei City, and her husband was among the first miners. Chang continued to work long hours above ground while cooking, cleaning and caring for the family.

Tragedy soon struck, as Chang’s husband and a fellow miner died in a tunnel explosion that same year. This was the fate of countless families of miners, leaving the wives to provide for the family’s needs alone. Chang had also developed pneumoconiosis as a result of her time in the mines and was often short of breath.

She finally found a caring partner in one of the mine foremen, but he also developed pneumoconiosis and died in 1975. Chang could only lower his head and continue doing all kinds of hard work to provide for the needs of their children and loved ones.

Banning women into hiding

In 1963, a serious mine explosion in Pingsi claimed the lives of two couples, the incident reportedly left 11 children orphaned. It is said that Soong Mei-ling (宋美齡), then first lady, lobbied for a ban on women going underground after visiting a mining town and seeing the many orphans there, and this tragedy ultimately ended. prompted the authorities to act.

However, the ban also made life more difficult for widows trying to support their families, as the above-ground pay was around 40 percent lower, although the work was also physically taxing.

There were other reasons as well: an entry from the National Museum of Taiwan History indicates that many thought it was unlucky for women to enter a mine, and others found it inappropriate for men to and scantily clad women work side by side in the tunnels which The temperature could reach 40 degrees in summer. And because of these concerns, the fact that women once worked in the mines was eventually “hidden.”

After the ban, women continued to play a major role in the demanding mining operations once the coal was transported out of the tunnel, including processing, loading, transporting, waste disposal and machine maintenance .

The story of Yang Kui-hsin (楊桂馨) of Jingtong is typical of this era: his father began working in the mines at the age of eight, developed pneumoconiosis at 29, and died at 42. Her mother, great aunt, aunts and sisters all helped turn coal into keeping the family afloat. She started working in the mines at the age of 15. Her mother was responsible for carrying heavy pipes, which eventually crushed her spine, leaving her with a permanently hunched back.

“She did everything to provide for our family,” she said in a Gala Television (八大電視) special about female mine workers.

INDUSTRY DEATHS

Mines began to close in the 1970s, when the country no longer relied primarily on coal for energy.

Disaster struck Haishan Mine’s Jiancheng Tunnel on June 20, 1984, where Chang was responsible for boiling water so hundreds of miners could bathe. An explosion in the tunnel killed 74 people and injured 31, and although Chang did not see it happen, she could smell the stench of human flesh for a long time afterward. After compensating the victims’ families, the mine resumed operations.

In December, the nearby Haishan No. 1 Tunnel in New Taipei City’s Sansia District (三峽), where Chang’s brother worked, also suffered a catastrophic explosion, killing 93 people and only one survivor (see “Taiwan in Time: Surviving on Human Flesh and Human Flesh”). a prayer”, December 3, 2017). An anguished Chang rushed to the scene and later discovered that her brother had left the tunnel early after suddenly feeling uneasy. He also tried to avoid debtors who would wait for him to quit his job.

Nearly 300 miners died that year, prompting the government to crack down on mines with lax safety standards and begin phasing out the industry.

The Haishan mine closed in 1989, but Chang continued to work in the company’s office until she finally retired in 1995.

Taiwan in Time, a column on Taiwan’s history published every Sunday, highlights important or interesting events across the country that either have an anniversary this week or are related to current events.