TOM CLIFF

Gu

Ms Gu was laid off without a pension from her job as a kindergarten teacher at the “third front “Third Front” factory where her husband also worked for his whole life.

—The Third Front was an industrial policy (1964–1980) that relocated urban factories deep inland, supposedly to make them harder to bomb in the event of war. Gu and her husband were relocated to a remote valley north of Korla, Xinjiang, from where they lived in eastern China.—

In 2008, Gu was knocked off her bicycle by a passing motorcyclist; she sustained head injuries and suffered memory loss and mild brain damage. The effects of the accident put a strain on her relationship with her husband.