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An Army on the Move
by Scott Berkland
As one of China’s largest and most unique cities, Chongqing draws
thousands of visitors each year. Those with money in their pockets
usually stay just long enough to indulge in the city’s two main
tourist attractions: hotpot, the oily stew of spicy meat and
vegetables that put Chongqing on China’s gastronomic map; and a
boat ride down the Yangtze River for a look at the Three Gorges.
During their stopover, however, these temporary guests usually
overlook Chongqing’s most numerous visitors, the city’s countless
illegal residents who come not for pleasure, but in search of
work. As in all large cities, Chongqing’s itinerant workers seek
out low profile but physically demanding jobs, such as shining
shoes or collecting plastic bottles, and make barely enough money
to survive. But because of its mountainous topography, Chongqing
fosters an especially large and distinct group of workers known
locally as the Bang-bang Jun, the “Pole Army.” Named after their
most important tool—the thick bamboo poles they lash with cargo
and balance over a shoulder—bang-bangs perform labor crucial to
Chongqing, where the undulating terrain prohibits the use of
bicycles and other forms of large-scale transport. Despite their
ubiquity and the importance of their labor, however, Chongqing’s
bang-bang army remains one of the city’s most neglected and
enigmatic subcultures.
 The
majority of Chongqing’s 400,000 bang-bangs come from the
neighboring countryside and reside in the city only part of the
year. They alternate between rural and urban settings according to
the crop schedule: during planting and harvesting seasons, most
bang-bangs return to their homes and families to farm their land;
when work on the farm slows down, they bring their poles and
aspirations to the city to scrape together supplementary income.
In Chongqing, bang-bangs work in small bands within strict
geographic boundaries, much like street gangs. They divide
themselves according to hometown, with each group responsible for
its own “territory,” its own particular section of the city.
Aligning themselves by place of origin, bang-bangs not only
monopolize the work in a certain area of Chongqing, but also enjoy
a ready-made social network. Each group consists of people who
know and understand each other—people who speak the same dialect
and share a common background.
Even though they work in exclusive groups and control the business
in a specific area, bang-bangs earn next to nothing. Each time
they shoulder a customer’s cargo through Chongqing’s busy
streets—whether sacks of groceries, cases of beer or bags of
cement—they earn two or three Yuan, about $.25, an allowance that
affords nothing but the worst living conditions Chongqing has to
offer. Most sleep in “bang-bang hotels,” a euphemism for the
cheapest, most unsanitary lodging available, where dozens of
guests often share a single toilet and sink. And for sustenance,
bang-bangs consume only the simplest of foods. Besides an
occasional serving of fei rou, “fat meat,” the lowest quality pork
on the menu, bang-bangs’ diets rarely stretch beyond subsistence
fare like rice, noodles, steamed buns and pickled vegetables.
Chongqing’s bang-bangs occupy a paradoxical social position: they
permeate the city and provide labor critical to its economy, but
remain mysterious outcasts to most of Chongqing’s 13 million
residents. Who makes up this elusive workforce? What kind of lives
do they lead? What do they have to say?
Tang Jian Guo
At 53 years old, Mr. Tang shows the unmistakable marks of age.
Deep lines crease his forehead, and loose, weathered skin crumples
at the corners of his eyes. His blue tank top hangs low on his
wilted shoulders, betraying the frailness of his arms and chest.
Mr. Tang’s graying hair needs washing, and a patchy, three-day
scruff encircles his mouth.
 Today,
Mr. Tang sits on a curb outside a small restaurant, bamboo pole at
his side, squinting through cigarette smoke at the Chongqing
Morning Post.
“This morning, I got up at 5:00,” he says. “For me, every day’s
the same: wake up, eat a little something, then wait for the local
restaurant and store managers. They need help moving things into
their stores,” he explains, “so that’s what I do. Around noon I
eat something, then rest. Everyone rests after lunch; no one’s out
shopping, so there’s no work. In the afternoon I wait in front of
that store,” he says, pointing across the street to an electrical
appliance store, one of many lining the opposite sidewalk. “It’s a
busy store, and people buy big things that they can’t carry home,
so it’s a good place to wait.”
Mr. Tang hauls anywhere from five to ten loads a day, and usually
makes three Yuan per trip.
“I don’t eat much,” he says, “so I save most of what I make.”
Mr. Tang’s daily regimen consists of only two real meals,
breakfast and dinner; for lunch, he usually eats a steamed bun or
a piece of fruit. Breakfast includes a hard-boiled egg and you
tiao, “oil stick,” a foot-long piece of fried dough, and a
bowl of soymilk. In the evening, Mr. Tang orders fried rice or a
bowl of noodles. All told, his daily food expenditures rarely
break five Yuan, or a little more than $.50.
Mr. Tang started porting things around Chongqing five years ago,
his latest of many “jobs” in the city.
“When I first came to Chongqing,” he explains, “I did
construction, usually fixing roads. That job was pie,” a
word in the local dialect meaning exceptionally bad. “We worked
long hours, and our boss cheated us—said he would pay us when we
finished a job, but never did. We basically worked for free. Then
a friend helped me get a job driving a motorcycle, picking up
buckets of scraps to feed to pigs. I didn’t like that job,” he
says, “tai zang,” too dirty, “so I changed. At the time I
didn’t know what to do. But I knew a few bang-bangs, so I started
doing this,” he explains, nudging his bamboo pole.
“This job isn’t any better,” Mr. Tang says. “It’s ku,”
bitter, tough, “and no good for my body. And everyone looks down
on this kind of work. But of course, the worst part is money:
working like this, you don’t make any money. And without money
life is tough, especially with a family.”
Mr. Tang’s wife and 17-year-old daughter live in a town three
hours away, where they farm a small plot of land and raise
chickens. Mr. Tang sees them every three months.
“I miss my family,” Mr. Tang says. “And I miss the countryside,
the quiet. The city’s too crowded and noisy. But mei ban fa,”
there’s no other option.
“We couldn’t make enough money there,” Mr. Tang explains of his
life in the country. “Besides farming, there’s no work, and I have
to put my daughter through school. If she doesn’t go to school,”
he says, “she’ll end up like me, uneducated and poor. To get a
good job, she needs skills, things she can only learn in school.”
Mr. Tang’s formal education ended after elementary school. His
daughter recently completed her freshman year of high school.
“She makes good grades,” Mr. Tang says, “and of course I want her
to continue with school. But the problem is very simple: it’s
money. Right now, we’re doing our best just to afford her high
school tuition, and college is much more expensive. After she
graduates, I don’t know how we’ll make ends meet.”
For now, Mr. Tang can only keep waiting for customers.
Liu Xiao Feng
Mr. Liu smokes Gold Buddha Mountain Cigarettes, one of the
cheapest local brands, and his body bears the hard evidence of
their causticity: his otherwise youthful smile reveals teeth
stained the color of coffee, and the fingers and nails of his
right hand are a jaundiced yellow-brown.
“I started smoking at 16,” he says. “My dad smokes, my uncles
smoke, all my friends smoke. If I don’t smoke, gan ma,”
what else is there to do?
“These cigarettes aren’t bad,” he says, offering his near-empty
pack. “I know cigarettes ‘harm one’s health,’” he mutters, mocking
the characters written on the side of his Gold Buddha Mountains,
“but cigarettes help me communicate with people, help me make
friends. And when I smoke, I feel shu fu,” comfortable, “so
it’s worth it.”
Mr. Liu works Chongqing’s docks, loading and unloading boats
plying the Yangtze’s roiling, silty waters.
“This is the best place in Chongqing,” he says. “It’s busy
everyday. Without this port, Chongqing wouldn’t be here. Up
there,” he explains, motioning above to downtown Chongqing, “you
have to peng yun qi,” try your luck. “But there’s always
work down here.”
Mr. Liu tailors his schedule to the amount of freight moving up
and down the river, and the weather.
“I work about ten hours a day, mostly during the day,” he says.
“If I work more than that, the next day I’m wasted, too tired to
do anything. In the winter I usually work a little more. Then the
weather’s cool, so work is easier. The summer’s too damn hot—you
know, Chongqing’s one of China’s four ‘oven cities,’” he says,
citing a popular saying among Chongqing residents explicating the
city’s notorious summer temperatures. “During the summer, I have
to rest.”
Mr. Liu sleeps about six hours at night and naps during the day.
“It’s hard to find a quiet place to rest around here,” he says.
“There’re always people and boats, always noise.”
Despite the relative abundance of opportunity at the waterfront,
Mr. Liu laments the choices that brought him here.
 “This
job is far from ideal,” Mr. Liu admits, exhaling the smoke of his
cigarette. “But it’s the best I can find. I don’t have any special
skills, so I can’t get a dependable job. When I was young, I
didn’t like school. I was rebellious and didn’t listen to my
parents. Now, it’s too late. There’s nothing else I can do,” he
explains.
“Work here on the docks is tough,” Mr. Liu says, “but it’s easy to
make friends. Everyone’s situation’s the same, so we fen dan,”
share each other’s burdens. “We all understand each other.”
When not working or sleeping, Mr. Liu and his friends play a card
game called Landlord.
“Cards are a good way to kill time,” he says. “We play and talk at
the same time. We bet a little bit of money, just to make it
interesting. It doesn’t really matter if you win or lose, because
whoever wins has to qing ke,” treat everyone else, usually
to Popsicles or ice cream bars, “so no one gets upset.”
Mr. Liu concedes he’s single and has never had a girlfriend.
“Of course, I want to get married,” he says. “It would be great to
find a la mei,” a “spicy little girl,” the local term for a
beautiful woman. “And if she’s rich, that’d be even better!” he
says, laughing. “But that’s just a dream. Who’d want to marry me?
What can I give a woman?”
Mr. Liu’s parents are his only family, whom he visits twice a
year.
“My parents are like me,” he says. “They don’t have any wen hua,”
any culture, any education. “They’re farmers, but they’re getting
old. I help them whenever I can—plant vegetables, give them money
and buy a few things for them now and then—but it’s not enough.
I’m their only son, so they depend on me. But the money I make
here isn’t enough. What if they get sick? What can I do then?”
Reminded of his burdens, Mr. Liu turns silent. He squats down on
his heels, lights up another Gold Buddha Mountain and stares
blankly into the Yangtze.
Jin Quan
Mr. Jin’s eyes have a glazed, restless look, and beads of sweat
crouch under the stubble around his mouth. He sports a round straw
hat and dirty T-shirt reading “1997: Welcome Hong Kong” across the
chest. Mr. Jin also owns a cellular phone, which he keeps in a
bulky plastic case attached to his belt.
“I don’t use it much,” Mr. Jin says as he draws his Motorola from
its case with obvious pride. “It’s mainly to keep in touch with my
family. But we usually don’t call each other,” he explains
diffidently. “Calling is tai gui,” too expensive, “so we
just send text messages.”
Sending a text message costs one Jiao, a little more than a
penny.
“Before I had this phone, I called home about twice a week. But
now,” he says, snapping his phone back into its case, “I keep up
with them everyday.”
Mr. Jin’s wife and two small daughters live six hours away, in
Sichuan Province.
“My wife works much harder than I do,” he says with a smile. “She
takes care of our daughters.”
“I hate being away from home,” Mr. Jin admits. “I want to see my
family everyday, to see my daughters grow up. In a few years,
they’ll already be big, already go to school. Then it’s too late.”
 Mr.
Jin expects to end his career as a bang-bang soon, to go back home
to his wife and daughters.
“I’ve been in Chongqing for a year,” he says. “Like everyone else,
I came to da gong,” to find temporary work, “and this is
the best I can come up with. Without an education, and without
guan xi,” connections, “it’s impossible to find a good job.
Back home, opportunities are fewer than in Chongqing. But I’m
still young; I can think of something. And if I’m home, I’m at
least with my family. That’s the most important thing.”
“If I had a good job and a residence permit, I could bring them
here,” he explains. “But now, I live like a liu lang han,”
a vagrant. “I sleep in a room with ten people. It’s hot, dirty and
loud. This kind of life doesn’t suit a family.”
“Over the past year, I’ve saved up some money, a few thousand
Yuan,” Mr. Jin says. “It’s not much, but it’s enough to take a
few classes, to learn something that I can use to find a better
job.”
“I don’t want to live this kind of life any more,” he says. “It’s
too kong xu,” too empty. “Bang-bangs do hard, physical
labor. We don’t use our brains. And that’s why we don’t make any
money—to make money in China, you’ve got to use your head. Look at
how many people there are here,” he says, pointing ahead to the
sidewalk full of people. “People are China’s greatest resource,”
he explains, “and everyone here can do manual labor, so it’s the
lowest-paying job. I know that to succeed, I need to learn a
skill, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
Mr. Jin plans to attend driving school, and then trade his bamboo
pole for a driver’s license, which he sees as the first step
toward a more dependable job.
“I know there are limits,” Mr. Jin says. “I don’t have a good
education, so I have to be realistic. I can’t get a white-collar
job, but that doesn’t mean I have to haul things under this pole
for the rest of my life. I can get a job as a driver, and deliver
things by truck.”
“This place is changing every day,” Mr. Jin says. “And if I
hesitate I won’t be able to keep up. I’ve spent enough time here.
I need to get away from this place, get away from this kind of
work. I need to start the next phase of my life.”
Xu Ren Hong
Mr. Xu wears a tight yellow tank top and ill-fitting slacks
cinched tight around his narrow waist. He stands about five foot
four, but his physique makes up for lack of stature: Mr. Xu’s
rolled-up pants reveal his bulky calves, and the muscles
comprising his arms, shoulders and chest look chiseled, like those
of an athlete. Mr. Xu looks young and strong for 50.
“I used to exercise all the time,” Mr. Xu says. “When I was young,
I played every sport I could—basketball, running, Tai qi,
swimming, soccer …as long as it involved exercise, I did it. When
I exercise, I feel shuang,” alive and refreshed. “I love
that feeling. If I had the chance,” Mr. Xu says, “I’d exercise
everyday. But I’m too busy working, trying to make money, so I
can’t.”
Despite his passion for athletics, Mr. Xu drifted away from sports
at an early age. He fell victim to the Cultural Revolution at 17,
when he left home to take part in the “Onto the Mountains, Into
the Countryside” movement.
“It was a crazy time,” Mr. Xu says. “When I was young, school
wasn’t like it is today. All we did was learn propaganda slogans
and ridicule our old teachers. We didn’t have real class. What do
kids do if they don’t go to school? We had to do something, so
everyone got sent into the countryside.”
Mr. Xu spent seven years in rural areas outside Chongqing, in what
was then Sichuan Province.
“I wasted seven years of my life out there,” Mr. Xu says. “We
learned how to farm, and we learned how farmers live. But in
reality, we learned that the last thing we wanted to be is a
farmer,” he says with a laugh.
 “At
the time, it sounded like a great idea,” Mr. Xu explains. “‘Learn
the Value of Labor’, and ‘Enrich the Countryside’” he says,
mocking the propaganda of the time. “But that was in the climate
of the Cultural Revolution, when everyone’s thinking was
backwards. We learned that just getting enough to eat was tough.
We were always hungry and always bored. Besides farming, there was
nothing to do.”
At the end of the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Xu returned to
Chongqing to work in a government-owned factory.
“I was glad to leave the countryside and to start a new life in
the city,” he says.
But after 19 years of work, the factory employing Mr. Xu suddenly
closed its doors, leaving him unemployed.
“All along, I planned on working there until I retired, and then
get pension. I assumed my work was safe. I didn’t imagine I could
lose my job so quickly,” he explains.
At 43, Mr. Xu had to find work to support his wife and son, then
16 years old.
“I tried everything,” Mr. Xu says. “But competition for good jobs
is fierce, much harder than it was ten or 20 years ago. Today,
there are so many young people with college educations. Who wants
to hire someone like me, an old man without an education, without
any technical skills? I can only work a few more years before I
retire anyway, and I don’t have the training the young people
have. It’s impossible to contend with them.”
Despite his difficulty finding a job, Mr. Xu and his wife scraped
together enough money to put their son through college, who plans
to graduate next year. His son’s college education constitutes Mr.
Xu’s heaviest financial burden as well as his greatest source of
pride.
“All along, I wanted my son to go to college,” he says. “When I
worked at the factory, we put away some money for his education.
But it wasn’t enough, and we still had to eat, so we had to find a
way to make ends meet.”
“My wife does cleaning, and I do this,” he says, pointing to his
thick bamboo pole. “I never thought I would be a bang-bang. I used
to think of this work as diu lian,” shameful. “But we need
money, and there aren’t many options for me now. And besides, this
kind of work is good exercise,” he says, his suntanned face
cracking a smile.
“I’m proud of my son’s accomplishments,” Mr. Xu says. “He’s very
dong shi,” very levelheaded.
“Life hasn’t been easy for us,” Mr. Xu says of his family. “We’ve
eaten a lot of bitterness,” he explains, meaning his family has
experienced their share of rough times. “But I know that anything
of value doesn’t come easy.”
“Overall,” he says, “I don’t have any regrets.”
Byproducts of “New China”
The economic quandary of Chongqing’s bang-bang army illustrates
the magnitude of China’s population problem. Despite China’s brisk
economic growth, the amount of jobs still hasn’t caught up with
the number of workers. Particularly evident in the
countryside—where three fifths of China’s billion-plus population
reside—this disparity forces millions upon millions of jobless to
flock to the cities, where they scrounge up a living by filling in
the gaps, much like Chongqing’s army of pole-toting transients.
Like people throughout China today, Chongqing’s bang-bangs face
the challenge of keeping pace with the nation’s swift
transformation into modernity. But for bang-bangs and others like
them, who lack the education and skills that might pave the way to
a better life, the only opportunity to improve their social
status—or in some cases even survive—is to wade through the bottom
rungs of Chinese society, and do the work that desperation forces
upon them. Someday, a more efficient and humane method of
transporting goods will replace Chongqing’s bang-bangs, but for
now, the city’s 400,000-strong army of men with bamboo poles
remain its most invaluable and most ignored workforce.
© Scott Berkland, 2004
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