15--A tond of bricks


While we were going through our acupuncture treatments, life did go on of course. We taught our classes and went on about our lives as usual. And, in additon, Mr Su seemed happy to find different things to show us about his culture, country, and especially his town.

So, on March 30, a pleasantly warm day, we got on our bikes, accompanied by Mr Su and his wife, and headed for the brick factory. We rode on the dirt roads past the farms and crossed the highway that is to the southwest of us. We went past a farm house and then we saw the high stack of the factory in the distance. Accross the irrigation canal, we were now on the property that is occupied by the factory, which has to take up at least three quarters of a section.

Bricks were stacked everywhere, neatly in rows, and stacked on a slant. We headed over to a building behind which there was a huge hill of dirt (it's actually called loess, but I refer to it as clay in the pictures). The dirt is gathered up from the fields and piled on this hill so that it can dry. Apparently it has to dry for about six months before it can be used to make bricks.

We wandered up to the top of the hill and looked at the surrounding area. There were a number of fields that had been stripped of a layer of soil (there really isn't any "topsoil" here), where there were now lakes of up to ten acres each. Mr Su explained that this was a real waste because the water was not good for fish or anything else. It is a loss of fertile farm land, so an environmental concern, especially since it affects the water table in the area.

The man at the top of the hill was working with a shovel to turn over the soil. It has to get as much air contact as possible. We watched as a truck brought more dirt up to where he was working, and dumped it on the edge of the hill, and the man proceeded to turn that over. A lot of manual labour goes into brick making, although there is some machinery employed. At the bottom of the hill there was an earth mover at work, shoving the dirt up to the top of the hill.

When we went back down the hill, we looked at the pile of coal in front of the building. Some men were working with shovels, and we noticed they were sifting the coal before feeding it into a chute in the building. Mr Su walked over to the men and asked if we could go inside the building. They directed us to the right, and we walked over the pile of coal to the door on the right hand side of the building.

When we first got to the large door, we noticed small trucks, bearing bamboo pallets, backing into the building. There, two women would remove the pallets and then load the truck with bricks. The trucks would then drive over to another part of the yard to unload the bricks. We looked at the operation for a while, and noticed that these people are constantly on the move. We were looking at a huge machine, which mixed the clay and formed the bricks. Behind the two women who load the bricks onto the trucks, was a man working the brick cutter and another woman was standing next to him, but I'm not sure what her function was. More than likely she did quality control, to ensure the bricks all were cut properly and to remove any debris or poor quality bricks. She also seemed to clean the blades on the back end of the cutter.
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We took some pictures and watched these people work at an amazingly steady pace. The two women who loaded the trucks were completely synchronized and moved along at a pretty good clip. Hard work, but they are glad to have a job. Apparently the operation goes on 24 hours a day, but during the winter months the factory closes down.

Then we went around behind the machinery to the far end of the building. We looked at the conveyor belt bringing in the soil from the door opposite the entrance. Close to that, on the left, was a machine that, we think, prepared the coal that was being fed in through that part of the building. And opposite that, on the right side of the building, there was a large water tank. All of these products were being brought in to be mixed together in the large mixer, which then kneads the mixture and forms a large continuous rectangular shaped block. This is then fed to the brick cutter, who cuts the bricks with amazing speed, while cleaning, checking and replacing the blades in between each cut.

We were surprised to learn that the coal is mixed into the mixture to form the bricks. We thought the coal was used for firing them, but that was not the case in this building.

After getting a good number of pictures in the manufacturing building, we walked out to the yard and looked at the stacks of bricks. We went over to the area where the new bricks were being unloaded. They are stacked on an angle so as to provide them with as much air circulation as possible.

Then they are then covered with the straw curtains that are so popular here. These are the same material as the greenhouse covers, and there are thousands more uses for this material, including roof insulation. They are made from a reed that grows by every pond or canal. The reeds are harvested in the fall and taken to family operations around the county who weave the mats. You can see these curtains, or mats, everywhere in town and in the country. This is a major cottage industry.

The bricks have to be covered when they are fresh so as to prevent cracking. They are left in the stacks for two weeks before being fired. In case of rain, all the bricks have to be covered up.

We continued to walk past the acres of drying bricks and went over to the kiln. Handtrucks with dried bricks were being taken into the many archways of this huge brick building. This was a new kiln, behind which was a smaller, older kiln which was no longer in use. We entered through one of the archways and watched the men unload the bricks from the handtrucks and stack the bricks on an angle. The building is oval shaped, and the bricks are continually being stacked, so that they actually end up working all around the building over a six month period of time. Only a section of them is being fired at any given time, so it allows them to continue stacking in one section while they are firing in another section.

Now we walked away from where they were stacking the bricks and passed a group of women who insisted on having a picture taken with me. I don't know what they are thinking sometimes, because we don't always have a way to contact them to give them their pics, but we oblige anyway.

Next, we exited through another archway, and ended up at the back of the building where the fired bricks were being taken out and stacked. We noticed that the stack of finished bricks is much smaller, so obviously they move out of here quite quickly. That's no surprise to us, everywhere we go in town there are stacks of bricks either being used for construction or awaiting same.

We walked up a sloped walkway to the top of the building, and noticed all around the roof there were small openings with fliptop lids. On the far end, a man was working, opening the lids and checking to see if they needed coal. Obviously that was the area being fired at this particular time. He walked around the section, checking lids and adding just a small amount, maybe a cupful, of coal to the fire. The reason they don't need much fuel at this stage, is because the bricks are made with coal, so that's what actually cooks them, from the inside out. The bricks end up being red on the outside, but black on the inside.

When we went back down the sloped walkway, a man approached Mr Su. It seems everywhere we go, somebody knows Mr Su. This man used to be a teacher, but because teachers' pay isn't very high, he took on the job of manager of this brick factory. They talked for a while, and Mrs Su talked to some of the people who had gathered there. Then we went on our way home.

Mr Su told us that this was only one of 60 brick factories in this county alone. We know that construction here uses virtually no wood, other than for finishing carpentry. Buildings are made from bricks and cement. So it's no surprise that there is a huge demand for bricks and therefore so many factories in the area. However, because there really isn't any "topsoil" it's not as big an environmental concern as it might be. The soil here is basically the silt that is being carried by the Yellow River, which is being deposited all the time. There are some brick factories that actually mine the silt directly from the river bed.

The only concern I have, is the stripped fields that are left with standing water. I'm not sure what they do with these, or if they can ever be conditioned for farming again. Another project to research, I suppose.

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