In Chongqing street you often see men holding a thick bamboo stick and a rope, chatting together or carrying huge bulks that must weight at least twice as them. They are called the bang bang (bang in Chinese stands for stick). So up we were to meet them.
Out of the group one is most willing to engage the conversation while others listen to us with curiosity. He is about 60 years old, and comes from the Sichuanese countryside.
Every year for the last 25 years he has been staying in Chongqing looking for house renovation work, waiting in the street to be hired by somebody for the day. He only goes back to his countryside for Spring Festival and October for the crop and the harvest to help his wife who stayed there. When he is hired, he makes about 70-80RMB per day, 10 years ago he made only 30-40RMB. When we ask him how much money he makes from his farm, he laughs; ‘farm is to bring the food, but who would expect to make money out of it’!
He has two sons, who both now live in Shanghai. The elder went to university and now works for a Taiwanese factory supervising a team of 1000 workers; he makes about 5000RMB a month. The younger which is 18, works as well for the factory.
When our old man talks about his sons, you can tell how proud he is. So why keeping working, when he has two sons to take care of him now? He would not get used not to work and feel like he should keep his independence… and on top of that, working as a bang bang in Chongqing is much less tiring than taking care of the farm!
Out of the group one is most willing to engage the conversation while others listen to us with curiosity. He is about 60 years old, and comes from the Sichuanese countryside.
Every year for the last 25 years he has been staying in Chongqing looking for house renovation work, waiting in the street to be hired by somebody for the day. He only goes back to his countryside for Spring Festival and October for the crop and the harvest to help his wife who stayed there. When he is hired, he makes about 70-80RMB per day, 10 years ago he made only 30-40RMB. When we ask him how much money he makes from his farm, he laughs; ‘farm is to bring the food, but who would expect to make money out of it’!
He has two sons, who both now live in Shanghai. The elder went to university and now works for a Taiwanese factory supervising a team of 1000 workers; he makes about 5000RMB a month. The younger which is 18, works as well for the factory.
When our old man talks about his sons, you can tell how proud he is. So why keeping working, when he has two sons to take care of him now? He would not get used not to work and feel like he should keep his independence… and on top of that, working as a bang bang in Chongqing is much less tiring than taking care of the farm!
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