LiretteKoonce505
出典: くみこみックス
Chongqing is one of the 4 municipal cities of China along with Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. It's located relatively centrally and a bit south on the south-eastern border of the more famous Sichuan province of which it used to be a part. Its status as separate from Sichuan has led to a huge economic explosion, with building work a constant feature of street life and mega-cranes an element of the skyline. However, even with the megaprojects and billions of dollars flowing in from all corners of the world, Chongqing has yet to come into its own and remains largely under the radar internationally, apart from the odd appearance on documentaries (Full Circle with Michael Palin, The Ascent of Money and Paul Merton in China).
The most obvious aspect of note is the air. Chongqing China is one of the most polluted cities in the world, thanks to a combination of mountainous geography, a proliferation of toxic factories and uncontrolled construction dust. During cooler days the mist is visible just a few metres in front of you, and even in the summer when the warm air clears the way for blue skies above, it's obvious to any foreigner that the azure scene overhead is paler than it would be back home. Even looking across the Jialing River, a gap of maybe 500 metres, can give one a sense of mystery as to what lurks on the other side.
The heart of the city is Yuzhong district, a thin peninsula formed by the convergence of the Jialing and the legendary Yangtze rivers. At the heart of this area is Monument Square - JieFangBei - site of The Monument which, at no more than 20 metres tall, was the tallest structure in the city even into the 1980s. Surrounding it now are all the accoutrements of modern capitalism; dazzling neon lights, high-end shopping malls, low-end shopping malls, international fast food chains, top-class international hotels and skyscrapers packed in like redwoods in a Californian forest. Surrounding this centre is a mixture of executive condominiums, borderline slums, restaurants for rich international clients and those for impoverished locals and adventurous tourists.
That leads on to the next thing one notices; the food. Chongqing people love hotpot. Pretty much every part of China has its own take on this, but the Chongqing version is often considered the daddy of them all (mainly by locals). It consists of a large pot, filled with water, assorted vegetables and lots of chillies. These aren't the kind you'll find in a fajita of a bhuna but ones that have a certain flavour and kick that give Chongqing hotpot its unique style. This pot is placed on a hob in the middle of the table and is heated. Customers order their food from a tick-box list and it's brought out uncooked. The rest is obvious. Let's face it, this is an acquired taste that you either take to or you don't. Also, it's hot, really hot. Make sure you have plenty of cold drinks on standby because you will be needing them a lot. 70% of all restaurants in Chongqing are hotpot so it's hard to avoid giving it a go at sometime; variety is not the spice of life here. Locals will wash it down with one of the local beers, the most popular being Chongqing 1958. It's rubbish, really rubbish, but in a country where brewing is an alien concept it's as good as it gets. It's not undrinkable, but don't expect to enjoy it. Another drink popular with hotpot is jinjiu, and herbal liquor with the look of whiskey, the consistency of water and the kick of acid, always best consumed with a chaser of walnut milk or Sprite.
The city has grown rapidly and, like many other cities in China, not very orderly. 5 million people are served by 1 metro line, which doesn't even go to the far-too-small international airport. As of February 2011, another 2 were close to completion with a few more on the dream blueprint for the future. To be fair, there would have been 2 operational lines, but work on the first was halted by a dispute between the city and the developers that dragged on for 5 years. Bridges have sprouted up too, including Teaching ESL in China , the longest single-span arch bridge in the world (558 metres). The various districts are much better connected by roads though, but even then traffic jams can be catastrophic.
So far it sounds like Chongqing is a concrete and steel megalopolis with no soul and nothing to see, but this is a mistake. CiQiKou is an ancient village on the outskirts of the city and is a perfect little arts and crafts gem along the banks of the Jialing. Here you will find noodles being made by hand, shops selling unintentionally hilarious Communist trinkets, a beach and the appalling smell of stinky dofu. It may by a tourist trap that in other places would be irritating and assumed as fake, but in Chongqing it's a blessed relief from the skyscrapers and traffic elsewhere. Another place that is similar is HongYaDong, and new building built on the cliff face along the same river right in the heart of Yuzhong. It's designed in the classic Chinese style to make it look ancient and is full of the same types of shops as the ancient village, but being in the centre makes it much more convenient. It's also a popular hangout for expats due to the presence of Starbucks, Subway, an Irish bar and a Mexican restaurant.
Talking of nightlife, all the main bars and clubs are situated in one small area next to Monument Square. Most are the local variety where there are no dance floors and punters stand around little tables drinking mixtures of spirits and tea. The ex-pat club is the Cotton Club and is the only one that isn't busy on a week day night. KTV - karaoke - is the big thing here. Rather than one bar with a microphone and an audience of strangers groups pay for a private room, buy drink and nibbles from an attached shop and then sing to their hearts content among friends who would never dream of pulling out their camera phones for the purposes of YouTube.
Apart from the food, locals will also tell you that this city has something Making money in China. It's true that just about every big city in China (and probably in the world) claims to have the most beautiful women on the planet, but in Chongqing it's almost an obsessive belief. Even the English language magazine published by the Foreign Expert Bureau made that claim in just about every edition. Also, ex-pats the author knew in other parts of China had heard the rumours and enquired it they were true. As is always the case, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Young women here certainly have their own unique style which often involves very short skirts or shorts and big big heels but beyond that, it's whatever one considers to be beauty.
The ex-pats are also worth talking about. The author spent a year there, working as a teacher and it was obvious that there weren't many foreigners around, so few in fact that we always stood out like sore thumbs. It had the big benefit of making it easier to make friends. Because there was still a novelty factor it was much easier to strike a conversation with a random Brit or American because they knew how it felt being there. In other cities in China that isn't the case; Westerners are ten a penny so no-one pays much attention to each other.
