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.
