Thirty years of reform and opening up brings to China as much prosperity as pollution resulted from industrial development. Industrial wastewater led to polluted river, allegedly the root cause of the drastic rise of cancer cases in Wuli Village. Wai Dongying, a barely educated villager, recorded the death cases one by one in her "Diary of Death".
Zhang Changjian, a bare-foot doctor in Xiping, Fujian, witnessed the rising number of cancer patients in his village. As the regional officials turn a blind eye to the crisis, Zhang joined forces with more than 1,700 fellow villagers suing the chemical factory in their neighbourhood. Winning the case, Zhang found himself becoming a marked man...
The plight of the two "cancer villages" reveals the harm to the Chinese people brought by water pollution. China should have by now realised the price to pay for over development and that "good" is more important than "fast".
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