Friday, 19th April, 2013.
We had to be up very early on the last morning of our cruise, to catch a flight from Chóngqìng to Xī’ān, the home of the terracotta warriors. However, well before my early-morning alarm went off, I was awakened by an enormous din right beside my window, of bumping and banging and lots of men shouting.
Peering discreetly out the window, I discovered an amazing sight. The luggage of all 350 passengers was being manhandled in an extraordinary way. Porters with bamboo poles were taking two suitcases on each end of their pole (yes, that’s four suitcases each) and (wait for it) then running (yes, running) along a long pontoon, then up a very long series of steps up the side of the river to where the buses were waiting at the top. Also, most of them were nonchalantly smoking as they performed this superhuman feat.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get any shots of the men carrying four suitcases as it was still dark. While the large pile of suitcases was right outside my window, the loading and running was too far away to photograph in the dark.
The best picture I could take was right at the end, when there weren’t many cases left. You can see that the man in front has one case on either end of his pole. Well, just imagine lots of men with two cases on either end.
This is a part of the pontoon the porters were running along (carrying four suitcases each).
These were the steps the porters were running up (carrying four suitcases each).
Later, when looking up my trusty Lonely Planet, I found that these porters are deservedly famous:
We had to be up very early on the last morning of our cruise, to catch a flight from Chóngqìng to Xī’ān, the home of the terracotta warriors. However, well before my early-morning alarm went off, I was awakened by an enormous din right beside my window, of bumping and banging and lots of men shouting.
Peering discreetly out the window, I discovered an amazing sight. The luggage of all 350 passengers was being manhandled in an extraordinary way. Porters with bamboo poles were taking two suitcases on each end of their pole (yes, that’s four suitcases each) and (wait for it) then running (yes, running) along a long pontoon, then up a very long series of steps up the side of the river to where the buses were waiting at the top. Also, most of them were nonchalantly smoking as they performed this superhuman feat.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get any shots of the men carrying four suitcases as it was still dark. While the large pile of suitcases was right outside my window, the loading and running was too far away to photograph in the dark.
The best picture I could take was right at the end, when there weren’t many cases left. You can see that the man in front has one case on either end of his pole. Well, just imagine lots of men with two cases on either end.
This is a part of the pontoon the porters were running along (carrying four suitcases each).
These were the steps the porters were running up (carrying four suitcases each).
Later, when looking up my trusty Lonely Planet, I found that these porters are deservedly famous:
The Toughest Porters in China
Ever since the first Chóngqìng-ers couldn’t bear the thought of carrying their buckets
of water from the river up to their cliff side homes, there’s been a need for a special
kind of porter. A porter who can lift more than his bodyweight and lug that load up and
down hills all day long. A porter who can’t use a trolley like in other cities, or a bike or a
rickshaw, but instead works on foot using only the cheapest of tools: a bamboo pole,
or ‘bangbang’, and a length of rope.
Known as the Bangbang Army, these porters have been bearing the city’s weights
on their shoulders for hundreds of years, but their numbers really exploded in the
1990s when the government began resettling millions who lived along the Yangzi
River. Many came from the countryside with little education and no relevant skills,
and soon became part of the 100,000-strong workforce. Unregulated and poor,
‘bangbang’ porters earn around Y30 per day to work in one of China’s hottest, hilliest
cities, lugging heavy loads up and down steep hills. When you consider some of the
wealth that’s been pumped into the city in recent years (just look across the river at
the Grand Theatre), it’s perhaps surprising that this age-old trade still thrives. But for
now, at least, the Bangbang Army continues to be an integral feature of the alleyway-riddled
areas that link this fast modernising city to its old docks (Lonely Planet).
No comments:
Post a Comment