"The arrival of internet networks is sure to have certain impacts to the business of stick men." Said Wang Qiang, who worked as a stick man but now has changed work , "Young people nowadays are enjoying their easy life in the society when it comes to buying and selling things and their deliveries, this is because the emergence of many domestic express deliveries has eased their lives. They can deliver to every residential area. You can enjoy home delivery only if you order on the net and most of the time it is not necessary for you to go to physically to a store for shopping no carrying goods back home by yourself, which is the biggest revolution in people's lives. So the emergence of internet networks is making it more and more difficult to carry on with the traditional business of the stick men are more and more difficult to carry on business and the business is becoming less and less attractive and the number pgf people doing it has declined drastically .”
The history of Chongqing Stick men
In Chongqing, there's such a group of people, who climb and descend the city's steep hills, with a one-meter long bamboo stick on their shoulders, and there are two indigo nylon cords on the stick. They usually wander along the city’s streets soliciting for business . Most of them are from the countryside, working as temporary porters in the streets of Chongqing, these people are also called "Stick men" by Chongqing citizens. Stick men can be seen everywhere in Chongqing, numbering about three to four hundred thousand and most of them are in their , teen-age to their fifties or even sixties.
It is said that the work of "Stick men" became popular in the late 80 s and early 90 s, so the name became a household name and acceptable in the city of Chongqing . In the nineties, there are more and more Stick men in Chongqing, and they carry their own livelihood on their own shoulders. They usually work in groups, so they are also called “ the army of Stick men”.
The historical reason for the emergence of Stick men is quite simple. As Chongqing is located near the mountain and by the river, and it is built on mountains, for which the buildings are surrounded by mountains, and the streets are formed from the foot to the top, these made Chongqing to have difficult path-ways and movements very difficult. So regardless of the city's development in infrastructure, still transport and transporting goods requires a lot of labor and energy.
In Chongqing, as long as one has strength, it is not difficult to earn a living ----because the terrain of Chongqing determines the existence of porters. Besides, this occupation requires neither energy nor skill, not even to say investment. It needs nothing more than a stick and two ropes to wander around wharf, stations or food market. After strolling around these places, one can find some physical works to do.
Undoubtedly, when you ask the outsiders about their impression for Chongqing, their answers may vary from person to person, but there's an answer that is never neglected, that is "the army of Stick men". It is such a mighty urban cultural landscape, which is almost unique in the whole world.
"Stick men inbound to city is an epitome of urbanization, while pining their fate on land is a negative reaction of encountering setbacks in the process of urbanization. The existence of Stick man offers employment, absorbs workforce surplus in rural area, and provides citizens with conveniences."
The space which is pressed
Profit should grow. In other words, the less the sticks are, the higher the income of sticks should be ——But it is not actually so.
Feng Hengqiao is a 54 years old and he is from Changshou District of Chongqing City. Comparing with people of the same age, Mr. Feng seems thinner, withered and yellow. He is not only aging, but also listless, the reason for the phenomenon of "I want to go home to to sleep just half a day" is “making the business worse and worse”.
At the beginning of 1990s, the initial charges of the stick men was only one yuan. Mr. Feng could earn seven or eight hundred yuan for each month and he could take at least 400-500 yuan back home besides necessary needs.
Nowadays, the charges of stick men has been changed to 5 yuan and income of Mr. Feng is 1000-1500 yuan for each month and the money he can take back home is just 500 yuan at most.
Why?
0.4 yuan could buy two steamed buns 10 year ago and equals to one breakfast, while each breakfast costs at least 2yuan now. The expenses for Mr. Feng to eat and take buses each day are nearly 30yuan, which is double the expenses 10 years ago. The business is becoming worse and worse at the same time that the expenditure is increased. "I can just wait and get only one customer for half a day and the buttock has been cold."
Wang Qiang, who was once a stick man, now has a tiny store in the New Chongqing Wholesale Market in Chaotian Gate. “Bulk business is not the main business of Chaotian Gate market any more.” Liu Wei, deputy secretary of Chaotian Gate market management branch disclosed, “The total business transaction of the market every year is about 20 billion yuan and the proportion of bulk transaction only accounts for 20%. Most merchants just take Chaotian Gate as exhibition area, customers come here to see and decide on the goods they want and traders will deliver the goods through logistic company, so sticks are seldom used."
For stick men, the production cost has increased, requirement of the market is reduced and the survival chances is slim.
Stick men in the fast developing city
Surprisingly, more than a decade later, when stick an is becoming outdated, the modern city is growing at the same time.
In August 2000, the concept of " 8 hours around Chongqing " was put forward for the first time, and it was formally incorporated into the Tenth Five-year Plan of Chongqing. Meanwhile, the project of easing traffic and construction of “ reaching the city center in half an hour ”(It refers to getting to the city government in half an hour from any district by bus )was officially declared and ready for implementation.
Traffic improvement is a essential to the rapid development of Chongqing. Being a municipality for fourteen years, the most intuitive feeling of citizens is that there are more buildings, private cars, and people run after the films despite at the price of fifty. There are almost new words everyday to update our memory, such as light rail, cloud computing, public rental housing, and micro-enterprises. With the fierce competition of logistics, distribution, express delivery and so on, combining with the track transportation connections, the convenience of taxi, the booming of private cars, the flourish of all kinds of supermarkets in communities, and the custom of bulk merchandise's home delivery.....all of these are competing the means of livelihood with stick men, which deprives their ample strength for abilities.
In traditional view, known as a mountain city, Chongqing can not turn to a metropolis because of its rough roads, and uneven terrain. But it has become an inland city with a population of over 30 million from a population of only 2 million in 1967 (Chongqing is a municipality under direct-controlled of the central government and there are 19 cities totally under it.
The population of the main urban zone of Chongqing is more than 8 million.), therefore it is called the world's fastest-growing city. In the global international city ranking of 2010 published by an American magazine Foreign Policy, there are seven Chinese cities on the list, in which Chongqing is included.
"Sticks should be for individual, free production method without needing skills and culture." Li Yong,from Chongqing Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Science said, “Today's Chongqing is running in the road of “enriching commonly”. For example, issuing trial measure of endowment insurance for peasant workers and promoting endowment insurance system entirely in the rural area; Promoting equalization of basic education of urban and rural and applying more than 70% of added educational expenses in rural education; For another example, issuing supporting approaches of micro-enterprises to let more people be more relaxed to start business.”
All of these let the old stick men find hope and cut off the possibility that more children of stick men will become stick men.
“I will go back home with my wife in a few years of being stick man, my child works in Guangzhou alone and he can earn about 10,000yuan a month, so we don’t need to worry about him, countryman above 60 years old can receive pension each month.” said Feng Hengqiao.
