PICTURE CHINA

Every year over 8.5 million peasants from China’s rural areas move to its cities and nowhere in the country is this urban migration more evident than in Chongqing. Workers from the surrounding provinces have flocked to Chongqing in search of higher paying jobs and a better life. The reality is much less appealing as they often end up doing long hours of back-breaking labor for very little money.

Many of these migrant workers end up as part of what locals call the “Bang Bang Army”. This 100,000 plus army of laborers are identified by the bamboo poles (or bang bang in Chinese) that they use to carry heavy loads around the city. Due to the hilly topography of Chongqing, the bicycles used to transport goods in other Chinese cities have been abandoned and manual labor used instead. Bang bang workers are hired by everyone from business owners to tourists to move all sorts of goods from ships at the port into town or around the city. For their efforts a bang bang man will make an average of 20 Yuan ($2.50) for working a 12 hour day.