Magic Chongqing Explore

Chongqing
(Traditional
Chinese
Calligraphy)

Living in a different social and cultural environment can become a fascinating life experience instead of an intimidating torment. Explore and interact with the local culture and society helps open a different mind and perspective for a more meaningful and rewarding expatriate experience. This program is designed to help the expatriate community better enjoy Chongqing and win the best out of it.

• Walk Ancient Chongqing

Yuzhong Peninsula is not only the current downtown area but also where Chongqing city had been built up upon and Chongqing people had been living originally in old times. Underneath its quite modern and international outlook at its busy commercial areas today, there are those historical stories/remains and ancient relics lying around the hidden streets/corners at  old Chongqing’s up city and bottom city areas waiting to be explored.

Old Chongqing

• Art Explore

In this spicy and busy city, there are also places for nourishing one’s spirit and mind, no matter it’s ancient or modern art form.

Writing Brush & Inkstone (Bi笔 Yan砚)

• Temple Explore

Hidden Temple
Chinese Ink Painting

To understand Chinese philosophy, Buddhism and Taoism are two main branches, and they also have temples in the city for you to have a taste of such spiritual pursuit.

• Mountain Explore

Chongqing is a city of mountains, some parks/temples are also built as integrated with the mountains - a symbol of spiritual isolation.

...Old towns explore and more...

Contact us for more details on this program for you or your assignees.

Plum Rain Season in Chongqing

If you are planning to visit Chongqing recently, you will be having the Plum Rain Season to welcome you here.

Plum rain is a typical climate phenomena at regions along mid and downstream Yangtze River, which usually comes as early as late May and goes as late as mid-July. During the Plum Rain Season, Chongqing city will always be covered with heavy grey clouds with continuous rains, day and night, big and small with only short and temporary un-raining days in between. The reason it’s called Plum Rain is because it’s a ripe season for sour-sweet plums, and it also has another name called Mold Rain (same pronunciation in Chinese) as the long raining days will usually bring along mold to your house, your furniture, your car and clothes and also humidity air inside your body causing damp-heat related diseases. Such a sun-lacking season affects people with the so-called Plum Rain Season Syndromes like lack of appetite, diarrhea, stomach sickness, somnolence, dysphoria and even depression. Please consult experienced TCM doctor or reliable TCM guidebooks for advice on some natural herbs, type of teas, vegetables and balanced diet for a healthy transition during this season. Outdoor hiking/walking for fresh air could also be quite helpful for stress and depression relief. There are nice parks in this big city, and ancient towns, temples, mountains in town and around the city suburbs (stay tuned for our later posts).

After the drowsy Plum Rain Season, you would be expecting the furnace heat and temperamental thunderstorms of the typical Chongqing summer.

Chongqinger

What is Chongqinger (Chongqing Ren)? Actually there aren't many original Chongqing locals existing in the current Chongqing population as ever since ancient times, it has been a city of migration (refer to the previous articles), yet living in the same city, they all start to share similar personalities.

As a city of mountains embraced with two rivers, one of which is China's mother river Yangtze River, its unique geographic features fostered unique climate and weather, and then a unique kind of people. 

Perhaps the most common initial view on Chongqinger would be like, they talk too much, too loud, too fast and even too straight. Not just for you as an expat, even Chinese from eastern cities may also find them a bit crude and lack of some cultivation, some extremists even call them barbarians.

Well, actually true and untrue.

As a city surrounded by mountains and rivers inside Sichuan Basin, in old days it had never been easy for people from outside to get in or people from inside to get out. To get an impression of that, take a look at the magnificent Kuimen Gate at the Qutang Gorge when you are taking the Yangtze Three Gorges Cruise, also the long and plentiful lashes on the big rock alongside the river as that’s the historical remains of hardship of Qianfus- men who drag with bare hands and feet with long and thick rope tied to the boats to inner city riverside, and they usually had to be away from home for months to earn some money to support their family if they could stay alive in the end (do watch the Wulong show for that part of history). Even making a living in town is not that easy. Mr. Bang (as people start to call them today) or called Bangbang (mountain porter man) earns a hard living by selling physical labor on the steep mountain roads. For the migrants to Chongqing in ancient time for various reasons, and for those chose to enter Chongqing via land routes, they had also encountered challenges beyond imagination – limited ancient government courier routes, steep and scary mountain routes with hidden mountain thieves or mountain lords, hungry beasts, sickness etc. Families at that time didn’t choose to enter Sichuan/Chongqing could lose the record of their offspring who chose to enter forever. Of course, on the other hand, this land had also been favored by some litterateurs who sought for a hermit recluse romance from the less satisfying secular life.

In addition to the harsh natural and living environment, the furnace summer with steaming unbearable heat, the humid winter, the either continuous raining or continuous sunny days, and the quick transition between summer and winter, and from sunny to raining and vice versa, make people living here like to pursue strong favored spicy diet to help let the heat, humidity and sometimes the “frustration” inside the body out.

So people here tend to speak a bit louder, faster and straightforward, they are a bit quick-tempered, hot-tempered, and they do not like being fussy about things. A bottle of beer, and a little Longmenzhen (wild chat), you could even make a local friend with certain sincerity, as Chongqinger does like to chat whenever wherever however long they can. Perhaps they are not as shrewd as people from some eastern and more civilized cities, they tend to spend more time whenever possible on enjoying life instead of figuring how to make/save more money, so people used to call Sichuan/Chongqing land has a Kingdom of Heaven that you must go when you retire but never enter when you are still young, because it would be hard to leave the place once you reach there. And Chongqing men could also be good family men as most of them are Pa Er Duo which means husbands who are afraid of wives.

Well Chongqing ladies are regarded both naturally pretty and physically and mentally strong. The humid weather and mountain land nourishes their skin and cultivates their elegant physical shape. They are also strong women either in running families or businesses. Nowadays there are more successful female entrepreneurs in Chongqing in various industries.

If you get the chance to visit or relocate to Chongqing, do mingle around with the local people – they don’t usually bite, taste the local food, and walk the now a bit hidden mountain routes, perhaps you will be evolved into a Chongqinger sooner than you could even imagine.

Chongqing Hua

Chongqing Hua (Chongqing Dialect) means the language spoken by Chongqing locals living in its main urban areas – there's a big differentiation between its other counties and regions; it belongs to Chengyu (Chengdu and Chongqing) branch of southwestern Mandarin, it represents one of the standard pronunciations in Sichuan Hua, and has more geographic application as compared to Chengdu Hua. As Chongqing has been a city of migrations from ancient times – the ratio of original Chongqing locals is no more than one third; the migration was mainly from Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Anhui, and it had absorbed some of their pronunciations into its own language system. Due to the promotion of standard Mandarin, the original Chongqing Hua is spoken less and less by the younger generation.

Chongqing Hua is also called Chongqing Yanzi(er), which has very straight-forward meaning, is easy to follow, and actually many of its phrases are quite amusing.

Yanzi pronunciation samples

Chinese	English	Mandarin Pinyin	Chongqing Hua
街	street	jiē	gāi
解手	go to the toilet	jiĕ shŏu	gǎi sŏu
鞋子	shoes	xié zi	hái zi
咸	salty	xiăn	hán
敲门	knock at the door	qiāo mén	kāo mén
叫花子	beggar	jiào huā zi	gào huā zi
睡觉	go to sleep	shuì jiào	suì gào

Yanzi phrase samples

Chinese	English
要得 yao de	ok
假打 jia da	hypocritical
撇脱 pie tuo	convenient
啥子/ 爪子 sa zi / zua zi	what
晓得 xiao de	I know
巴适 ba si	nice, comfortable
豁我 huo wo	lie to me
踏雪　ta xue	despise
打望 da wang	go see pretty girls
嘎嘎 ga ga	meat
国孽 guo lie	quarrel, start a fight
香音 xiang yin	cheap
唐家沱 tang jia tuo	a place quite far from the city center, it usually is used in a sentence to mean one’s business suffers a big loss
刹一脚 sa yi jio	stop there, pause
说嘞些 suo lie xie	Don’t mention it, no big deal
偷油婆 tou you po	Thief of oil - cockroach
扭到费 niu dao fei	Stubborn, insistent on something
耙耳朵 pa er duo	soft ears – afraid of wife
麻麻鱼 ma ma yu	spicy fish – be cheated
不存在 bu cun zai	It’s ok, doesn’t matter
假巴意思 jia ba yi si	pretend to
巴心不得 ba xin bu de	most desired

Enjoy Chongqing

Visiting or living in a new and strange place could be dull and boring if there’s not much fun to discover to add color to such an experience. No matter what kind of life-enriching experience you are looking for, Chongqing has its own unique flavors for you to savor.

Food

As a fast developing modern city, Chongqing has a wide range of food choices to offer. No matter whether you are looking for a western or eastern cuisine or different types of Chinese cuisine, you can find them in either high class or common standard restaurants.

We will give you some recommendation on that in later posts, here let’s first take a peek at what the locals are usually having in their daily lives.

Breakfast

Like in many cities, typical breakfast choices would be like Baozi (steamed stuffed bun), Mantou (steamed bun) and Youtiao (deep-fried dough stick and better served together with soya-bean milk), those favored in Chongqing are Xiaomian (vegetable noodle), Youcha (sweetened fried flour) and Tangyuan (rice dumpling), just to name a few.

Lunch

Local people usually don’t spend much time enjoying an elaborate lunch and some typical “fast food” lunch choices include Noodles of various meat toppings, Chaoshou (Wonton), Fried rice, Rice topped with meat/vegetables or served separately in small plates, Ma La Tang (food boiled in hot pot and served in plates separately when ready)

Snacks

Of course there are snacks around to appeal to the inquisitive eyes. And most locals are natural foodies searching for a joy of snacks whenever they feel like to. What most commonly supplied in the food street and food stands are Suan La Fen (noodle made of sweet potato with mainly sour and hot flavors), cold noodles, fried meat strings, tofou jelly (with spicy flavor), cold shrimp, cold jelly, etc.

Dinner

When the day’s work is finally finished and the night comes, the city becomes even more dynamic and energetic. Some people will simply go home, prepare some simple home-made dishes, rest and call it a day. While for many others, it’s the start of another chapter of life. Decent restaurants are commonly available around the city for lovers, families, friends or business associates to catch up and stay connected. But the places that are mostly favored by the locals are restaurants serving hot pot, dry pot, Jianghu (literally means rivers and lakes, and indicates the common life in general) dishes, or temporary sidewalk booth serving barbecues, night snacks, grilled fish etc., where they can relax, drink beer, talk out loud and eat as late as they want. People who enjoy and follow such kind of night life style are called “night cats” here.

Entertainment

As compared to the more developed coastal/eastern cities in China, people here are more inclined to spend time on entertainment whenever they have the chance. Karaoke Center and Tea house for Longmenzhen (literally means Dragon Tongue Squad, and locally indicates casual chat for killing leisure time), Mahjong and Poker games are the most common leisure channels. Of course, there are also bar streets in different commercial areas for both Chinese and foreign “night cats”.

If you would prefer a more quiet night life, for expat standard housing in Chongqing, usually there’s decent commercial center, gym center, leisure area inside the community or close by. Yet unless you are living in some remote area, jogging outside would not be very convenient, safe or even healthy. In nice sunny days, go picnicking in the nearby parks or mountains is also a nice option. If you are more of a culture hunter, the various museums telling Chongqing’s histories and stories, theaters for national and international performances, and scenic centers inside the city and its suburban areas can always offer you something in your to-do-list.

And if you have nothing against Hot Spring, Chongqing has nice hot spring resorts for a bit pressure easing and health enhancement which could be nice for either weekend or holiday outing.

Chongqing Taste

The current Chinese Cuisine system is composed of four main culinary traditions representing the cooking philosophy/techniques/styles and food ingredients characteristic of the four regions in Shandong (shorted for Lu), Sichuan (Chuan), Guangdong (Yue) and Suzhou (Su). Of course there are more than four regional culinary traditions and some people argue there should be eight or even ten main culinary traditions in China, from which you could sense a bit the diversifying feature in Chinese culture and civilization. If there’s a time machine and you could get to travel back to each Chinese dynasty and taste the food in its different directions, and each and every period would present you with a totally or slightly different flavor as food or cuisine is a representation of the climate, resources and customs of the time and place.

Unlike the northern cities which have more abundant food sources in beef and mutton, or the coastal cities which have more marine food sources, Sichuan located in southwestern China has more aquatic and poultry food sources to be applied to its cuisine. Needless to say that “Ma La” Spicy flavor is the main feature in Sichuan Cuisine nowadays, yet actually chili was originally imported from America via Europe during China’s late Ming and early Qing dynasty and was then applied to and became the main cooking style in Sichuan Cuisine.

Main Seasonings

Three Types of Peppers: Hua Jiao (Flower Pepper), Hu Jiao (Black/White Pepper); La Jiao (Chili)

Three Fragrant: Cong (Green Onion), Jiang (Ginger), Suan (Garlic)

Others: Soy Sauce, Vinegar, Doubanjiang (broad bean chili paste), Douchi (salted fermented soya beans)

What ingredients you need for making Sichuan dishes

Chengdu (Rong) Upstream Cuisine and Chongqing (Yu) Downstream Cuisine are two main branches under Sichuan Cuisine, they seem similar but actually quite different if you pay close attention to.

Chengdu dishes are usually called Guanfu (government officials) dishes as they usually use high class ingredients/food materials, with accurate proportion as per the recipes, good-looking appearance and mild taste. While Chongqing dishes are called Jianghu (common social life) dishes as they have rough appearance, use boldly a variety of cooking styles/food ingredients. Chengdu hot pot uses vegetable oil, while Chongqing hot pot uses animal oil (beef oil) with strong flavors.

Stay tuned, we will introduce the popular Sichuan dishes and how to make some of them in later posts.

Get to and Get around Chongqing

Chongqing is located in southwestern China; it’s a modern city with several international flights already open, and easily accessible via airways, road ways and railways inside China.

Direct international flights - How to get in and out?

San Francisco (short stay in Beijing); Los Angeles (short stay in Shanghai); Sydney; Tokyo; Seoul; Hong Kong; Macau; Taipei; Bangkok; Phuket; Singapore; Doha; Helsinki

For cities that don’t have direct flights available to/in Chongqing yet, you could still easily transfer from Hong Kong, Doha, Guangzhou, Shanghai or Beijing etc., depending on where your departure/destination cities are.

The traffic means available inside Chongqing city includes, bus, taxi, metro, motorcycle, tricycle and ropeway. Bicycle usually serves as a sport or entertainment here as you could imagine, cycling in a mountain city like Chongqing could be quite a challenge.

If you plan for staying a bit longer and don’t mind exploring public transportation, do get a Chongqing Traffic Card (the image at the center of the image below) at any metro station; it could not only be used (at a discount) for all public transportation vehicles except for motorcycle, tricycle and taxi (not fully covered yet right now), but also for daily life expenses like in some shops, supermarkets, parks, museums, cinemas etc.

Do remember to bring your passport while booking a train ticket as all train tickets in China need to be registered under the real passenger’s name. If booking from a selling window outside the railway station, you need to pay an extra 5 Yuan for each ticket.

Traffic Options in Chongqing

Accommodation in Chongqing

No matter whether you are coming here as an inquisitive traveler or as an international assignee either short-term or long-term, accommodation options of wide-range of standards/budgets are available for you to choose from.

Accommodation Locations in Chongqing
APA office (red door) is in Somerset, Jiefangbei CBD

Here listed below are decent accommodation options for you to consider in different directions. Comparatively speaking, the northern area has more hotels, apartments and especially houses to offer, as it’s a bigger area with more and more mature development. There are no houses to offer in central area as it’s the oldest area with narrow space, but it does have apartments of decent modern standard with good access to central business center. The west area is less developed with limited hotels/apartments of decent standard for rental, it also has houses developed in some area and its further west, but not much for rental currently. The south has decent hotels to offer, has limited apartments of decent standard, has houses developed with more and more under development, but not much for rental currently. Of course, if you have tight budget, there are also lower cost accommodation options available.

Accommodation Recommendations in Chongqing

Please contact us, if you need to know the latest hot properties for rental/sale in Chongqing, esp. expat friendly communities, which hotel to stay during your visit, or any advice on moving to Chongqing.

Chongqing - Past & Present

Origin

Sichuan area, in ancient time, was called the land of BA and SHU Kingdoms; Shu Kingdom was established upon the Chengdu Plain by Shu Tribe; while Ba Kingdom was established upon Jiangzhou (current Yuzhong district in Chongqing) during the Spring and Autumn Warring States Period (BC 770-221) by Ba tribe. Both Ba and Shu Kingdoms were conquered in the end by Qin - the first united dynasty in Chinese history.

As a matter of fact, Ba is a very ancient tribe, which could be traced back to the legendary Five Emperors Period (BC 3076-2029). And Ba actually means "Tiger" to Ba people; it's what they call tiger in their pronunciation; they worship tiger; they regard themselves as a tribe of tigers, tiger (ba) people; tiger or actually white tiger is their totem.

What worth mentioning is in ancient Chinese science of constellation white tiger, which resides in the west, is a star directly controls weapons and wars; and Ba warriors were also renowned for its bravery and battle wisdom. 

To better understand/appreciate that part of civilization, pay a visit to Ba People Museum located in Ba Kingdom City, Jiulongpo district and Ba General Manzi's Tomb at Lotus poool, Qixinggang, Yuzhong district.

Three Kingdoms Period 

Quite a lot of stories depicted in The Romance of Three Kingdoms (one of the Four Major Classics in Chinese literature) happened in Chongqing area during the Three Kingdom's Period in Chinese history. There are still some historical relics remained for you to visit, like White King City at Three Gorges and Zhangfei Temple at Yunyang couty. 

White King City is located at the east of Chongqing, north of Yangtze river, a sightseeing spot you can not miss at the Yangtze RiverThree Gorges Cruise. It's facing right at Qutang Gorge. Even though it's the shortest of the Three Gorges, it's the most dangerous, grandest and mightiest. At its west, there's an entrance called Kuimen Gate which is only less than 100 meters wide at its narrowest spot. Underneath White King City, there's a carving says "Kuimen the Most Magnificent in the World". Kuimen is also printed at the back of the 10 RMB currency.

Song Dynasty 

Chongqing - Double Happiness

In 1189 Zhao Dun, the third son of South Song Dynasty emperor, was appointed as the Duke of Gongzhou (current Chongqing) before he was enthroned the same year, so he changed Gongzhou into Chongqing which means “double celebration or double happiness” in Chinese.

Anti-Mongolia War - Fishing City Ancient War Fortress

Fishing city was built on fishing mountain at the south of Jialing River, in Chongqing's Hechuan city. It got its name from a legend which says there used to be a Giant God fishing at the giant flat rock on the mountain to help the local people that were suffering from famine.

After the Mongolian troops started to invade Sichuan, Song dynasty emperor sent his assistant minster of the Ministry of War to build cities and fortresses on this mountain to defend his kingdom in 1243. Then a complete defense system was built on the mountain later on and had actually defeated the invading Mongolian Khan. The defending generals had remained their resistance till 1279 when the South Song dynasty went perished, which is altogether 36 years' defending history. The Fishing City Ancient War Fortress relics is still remained intact on the mountain nowadays.

Ming Dynasty - Chongqing's 17 City Gates

When Ming conquered and retrieved Chongqing into its united empire, the city was dramatically damaged then an order was given to rebuild the city. The new Chongqing city was built with 17 city gates, even 4 more than the Ming capital - Nanjing. But among them 8 gates were fixed as closed gates. Since then the city structure had remained the same till contemporary China. Nowadays you can still find some gates or gates remains in the city if you would take an interest in Walking Chongqing via many hidden routes. 

Early Qing Dynasty - Huguang Fills Sichuan Immigration

Due to the chaos of the wars, plagues and famines at Late Ming and Early Qing dynasties, the population in Sichuan dropped dramatically - there were perhaps hundreds of families left in Chongqing city at that time, then the Qing government issued policies to encourage people from the nearby Huguang province (covering the current Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Guangxi) to immigrate to Sichuan (Chongqing); in the end, the population in Sichuan increased from 500 thousand to 22 million.

To better understand/appreciate this part of Chongqing culture, a visit to Huguang Guild (East Water Gate, Yuzhong District) would help.

Qing Dynasty -  Opening up (by force) Period

After the opening-up treaties from the wars, foreign merchants, residents and government entities were coming to Chongqing gradually. Chongqing port and Chongqing were then open to the world. Nowadays you may still find some remains from that period at the following locations.

French Navy Dock and Military Camp - Danzishi, Nan'an District; from there you could also have a view of Chaotianmen Dock, the Nanbin Riveside Road - a commercial street with enchanting night views.

Russian Residence Mansion - Pipa Mountain, Yuzhong Dsitrict - now a Botanic Park.

German Legation - Nanshan Mountain, Nan'an District - now has a Botanic Park.

Republic of China/Anti-Japanese War Period

When the nationalist party's army started losing the battles with Japanese army, the Republic of China Government set up Chongqing as a backup wartime capital which finally became official after Nanjing was occupied by Japanese army. Embassies of UK, US, France, German, Belgium and Switzerland started to move to Chongqing, and even the exile government of Republic of Korea was even given a temporary station in today's 38 Lotus Pool Street, Yuzhong District (open for visitors).

During its wartime capital period, Chongqing received millions of immigrants coming from cities in mid and downstream Yangtze river, it was then the center of politics, economy and culture, also the commanding center for anti-fascist war in the far east.

There used to be hundreds of wartime capital relics yet many have been lost during Chongqing's modernization development recent years. Here are some,

Chongqing Blitz Massacre Relics - Ciqi Street, Yuzhong District, on June 5th every year, there will be morning ceremony with actual air raid siren to morn for that day.

Liberation Monument - one of the symbols of Chongqing, located in the center of Jiefangbei CBD, Yuzhong district. In the beginning, it was actually called "Spirit Fortress" (made of wood) built to encourage people's spirit and courage for the Anti-Japanese war; when the war was won, an Anti-Japanese War Victory Monument (made of cement) was built on the same location which is how it looks today; it is said that, buried underneath the monument, there were weapons captured from the Japanese, stored inside the monument there was a letter written by US president Roosevelt to the Chongqing people, carved on the inner sides of the monuments there were names of the soldiers killed during the war. And it changed into its current name of People's Liberation Monument in 1949 when Chongqing was liberated. 

General Stilwell's Museum - if you are interested to understand/appreciate the history of American Volunteer Group (AVG)'s Flying Tiger, do pay a visit to this museum at 63 Jialing New Road, Yuzhong District.

Official mansions/residence mansions of Chiang Kai-shek, Song Meiling and other important figures

Relics of Government of Republic of China and the President's Mansion

Red Rock Village Relics

Zhazi Hole Prison

Baigong Mansion

Consulates Alley

People's Republic of China - Cultural Revolution Period

The Red Guards' Tomb - Shapingba Park, Shapingba District; during the cultural revolution period, Chongqing was a region that suffered the most severe damages from the so called "Wudou" (Violent Fight; armed conflicts between different rebellious groups) as Chongqing had many arsenals at that time and many workers from those factories had participated in the Wudou which even involved using heavy weapons like warships, cannons and tanks causing thousands of casualties. This tomb is now the only one remained nationwide.

Chongqing Today - The Municipality

Chongqing was officially set up as a municipality in 1997 and has made remarkable achievements in economic development ever since.

With a total size of 82,400 km², its total municipal population in 2012 is 29.45 million, annual GDP (2012) is RMB 1145.9 billion, total import and export volume is USD 53.204 billion, Foreign Direct Investment is USD 10.533 billion.

Please contact us, if you need help on,

a) a city orientation

b) a taste of Chongqing program

c) or simply some leads or advice on relocating or travelling to Chongqing