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China Elevator Stories
Chongqing: City in the Mist
In my imagination, Chongqing is a laid-back mountain metropolis next to the river with lots of culture and history.
30/11/2012
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
It has been two years since I left the southwestern city of Kunming—the beautiful city of spring that became my home for one year of studying abroad. When I return to China in late spring 2012, I bring only a backpack with clothes, the tiniest books I can find, and vague plans to travel around China for a few months before looking for a job. I fly from Vienna to Chongqing—after all, Kunming will be one of my destinations, and Chongqing is relatively close by (compared to more common flight destinations like Beijing or Shanghai).
In my imagination, Chongqing is a laid-back mountain metropolis next to the river with lots of culture and history. This isn’t to say that Chongqing lacks culture or history, but when I arrive there on 7 June 2012, it’s quite different from what I expect. I take a cab to a hostel, and from what I can make out in the mist that spreads across every corner of Chongqing, it doesn’t seem like a very pleasant city. Most Chongqingers I meet during my stay confirm that my first impression is accurate. They assure me it’s true of the city itself but not of the people living there. Some people I meet grew up in other parts of China and moved to Chongqing to look for job opportunities. Others grew up in Chongqing, left to study in bigger cities, and returned—at first reluctantly. Over time, they become convinced that Chongqing, a city once plagued by organized crime and corruption, rocked by the political scandal surrounding the Heywood murder in 2012, needs them—the good and honest people of Chongqing.
One evening, as I sit at a table with ten Chongqingers, the conversations are as fiery as the hot pot this city is famous for. After some beer and baijiu, my Chongqing friends start telling me passionately how much they love this troubled city and how they want me to tell all my friends that Chongqing is a city worth visiting. They explain that the Chongqing of 2012 is already a much safer, cleaner, and better place than the Chongqing of a few years before. They say Chongqing is a city of opportunities, a place where good people far outnumber bad, and a city that treats everyone equally, regardless of where they’re from.
Maybe the garbage I see being tossed into the streets, the mold that spreads from one building to the next, the mist that makes it impossible to see farther than a few hundred meters, or the unbearable summer heat, are just what outsiders notice on the surface, preventing them from seeing beneath it.
Have you ever been surprised by how different a place was in your imagination compared to reality?
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