'Bangbang' carry mountainous city on their shoulders

The four flights of stairs the national weightlifting champion Li Bin climbed before he reached the final stage to light the cauldron to end the torch relay reminded me of a faded photo about the city taken in the 1960s.

It is a photo featuring a long flight of stone stairs in front of the Chaotianmen Port, known as the starting point for the centuries-old city set in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, which has long been an economic hub of western China.

Such a terrain explains why Chongqing, the most populous municipality in the world as home to 32 million people, has the least ownership of bicycles, yet the most number of porters who bear the city's weights on their shoulders.