China's Most Viral City Is Hiding a Dying Job

China is advancing at an alarming rate. Some of its centuries-old ways of life are becoming extinct.

These men have been doing this job since before I was born, but in just four years, they're going to be unemployed.

Oh, and welcome to the world's largest city.

Welcome to Chongqing, a city you might recognize from the influx of influencers pouring through

to capture its best side. But beneath the bright lights, Chongqing has an invisible hero, the Bung Bung Men.

Named after the bamboo poles slung across their shoulders, these porters were once half a million strong.

Today, there are less than 2,000 of them. And by 2030, it's estimated that this job will be gone entirely.

Before they disappear, I want to meet them. So come with me into the gritty underbelly of Chongqing, side by side with China's last bong bong men.

And we are joined today once again by the wonderful Hong Lin, who is still, for some reason, not sick of me.

How can you tolerate me this much? It's a good adventure. It's a good adventure for us. We've come down to the dock here in Chongqing.

You can see behind me Raffle City, the hotel apartment mall complex finished in 2020.

and in stark contrast the gritty wholesale market and dock which we're going to go and check out

yesterday we met a man called Mr. Lee a man

who many years ago served in the Chinese army and

now makes his money as a bong bong man

here on the streets making about 10 to 20 dollars a day we're going to see if we can find him we're going to see if we can find some of his friends and see if we can hang out for the day

I'm going to go to the next one on the street. Mr. Lee, hello.

Okay, I'm going to go to the house. The phone is a lot.

I'm going to go to the house and see what's happening. But now the house is a little. So I'm not going to go to the house.

We have a few cars. We have a lot of cars. We have a lot of cars.

I'm not going to leave. I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave.

I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave.

So, Mr. Lee, there seems to be very few ships here.

You were saying there isn't a lot of work. How did it look before? What did these streets of Chongqing look like before?

We built a lot of houses. We built these big trees. We didn't even have them.

There were only two big trees. Later, we built a lot of trees. Hello.

How are you sir? Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And one left for me. Look at that. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So essentially, you're doing the same thing that you do when you get off of a tourist bus. Hi, how are you? How are you doing? You good? You come off the cruise?

Yeah, I'm just gonna find my Tripadil people. Ah, Tripadil people, not sure, mate.

When you ask these customers and you take to the city, how much do you charge?

10 yuan for one luggage. 10 yuan per piece, so 10, 10.