Chongqing's iconic porters struggle for relevance amid city's progress

Their numbers are fast declining with use of delivery riders, improved transport system

- Aw Cheng Wei China Correspondent

At the Chaotianmen ports next to Chongqing's iconic Raffles City mall, around two dozen porters - known locally as bang bang jun - hang around roadsides and the docks, waiting for jobs.

Bang bang refers to the thick bamboo poles the porters hoist on their shoulders, with the goods they transport such as cruise passengers' luggage or boxes of clothings and trinkets to be sold at a nearby wholesale centre balanced on them.

Once a common sight in China's largest and most mountainous city along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, these porters have been increasingly phased out by delivery riders and improvements to Chongqing's transport system.

Mr Hu Yi, 63, who works at the Chaotianmen ports, told The Straits Times: "It's a difficult job, and there are fewer and fewer people who need our help to carry stuff, so it is no wonder no one wants to continue on in this line."

Bang bang jun is a moniker unique to porters in Chongqing, where steep inclines mountains form about 75 per cent of the municipality's terrain required manual labour to transport heavy goods from the docks. Chongqing has China's deepest inland port open to foreign trade.

The bang bang jun - who in their heyday in the 1990s numbered in the tens of thousands have been featured by both national and international media, from China Central Television to The New York Times, with television programmes and documentaries focusing on their difficult lives.