Dai Yongxi / China Daily

The hard physical work discourages local young people. A dozen women, mostly older than 60, collect bricks at the kiln's entrance, carry them to a nearby open space and pile them up.

They normally get up at 4 am and start to work, wearing straw hats and gloves, and wrapping a braided-straw rope around their waists to help carry the bricks. Each of them totes roughly 25 kg of bricks at a time. Most of them have plied their trade as brick haulers for more than a decade. They work adroitly and diligently until noon.