Lin Yudui was considered the lucky brother. Like more than 100 million Chinese peasants, he left his rural roots behind for a job in the big city. His younger sibling stayed in the family’s hometown, the hamlet of Dongzhou in southern China’s Guangdong province. In early December, when Lin returned for a visit, the brothers joined a protest against a nearby power-station project. Locals claim the plant is being built on village rice paddies sold by municipal officials to the power company without proper compensation to the villagers. Moreover, the project involved filling in most of a lake that had supported generations of Dongzhou fishermen. The protest ended violently, with at least three people killed by security forces. Lin was one of them. “We thought he escaped to a better life in the city,” says his brother, who refuses to give his name for fear of official retribution. “But he died a farmer.”
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