Hi there:
In this issue we feature Zhuo Xilin's sensitive profile of Zhang Baoyun, a Chongqing mover known for his good deeds. Among other kind acts, Zhang pays tuition for 23 needy students through his backbreaking work as a "rodman." These legendary workers negotiate Chongqing's mountainous terrain while carrying goods attached to a bamboo rod hanging over their shoulders.
Zhuo's story was first published in Chinese by We Are People With Stories on May 24.
Take care and see you soon.
—ML
The Mover Who Funds 23 Needy Students with His Trusty Rod
By Zhuo Xilin
Edited by Meteor Shower
The mountainous geography of Chongqing has given rise to a unique form of manual labor—delivery by bamboo rod. The workers who carry goods by suspending them from rods thrust over their shoulders are known as the "rod army." One such laborer is Zhang Baoyun. Zhang ran away to Chongqing at age 15 and has been working as a "rodman" for 24 years. Yet a significant chunk of Zhang's earnings go toward paying tuition for 23 underprivileged children. The most recent addition to Zhang's beneficiaries has been on the list for nearly eight years.
Three years ago, when Zhang's father passed away in the wee hours, he was still at work, so he could wire sufficient funds to the children he supported the next day.
Now his late father's younger brother is sick with uremia and in dire need of a kidney transplant. A friend suggested Zhang launch a donation drive using the crowdfunding website Shuidi. As of April 22, he had only raised 180 yuan because he hasn't submitted enough information. Others have advised Zhang work within his means and avoid stretching himself thin, that he take better care of himself.
"Kindness is a form of self-love," Zhang says. He called his uncle recently to tell him not to worry and that he would figure something out.
All Zhang can do is work even harder, fueled by the thought of his 23 kids and his uncle's kidney transplant.
1.
After crossing the street in the Jiaochangkou area and making your way down meandering Kaixuan Road, you hit West Jiefang Road. Walk westward another 500 meters along Jiefang Road and you reach Nanji Gate. Zhang Baoyun's home is located not far beyond the gate.
The crucial linkage that is Kaixuan Road is actually equipped with an elevator that connects the two different altitudes. Most people choose to take the elevator for speed and convenience. Zhang barely uses it. He thinks the 1-yuan (15 U.S. cents) fee is a waste of money.
Zhang doesn't know how to use the GPS function on his phone to send his coordinates. Before our first meeting, I ended up wandering for 2 hours in the vicinity of the monument marking China's victory in the 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese War. I couldn't understand his repeated directions over the phone even though we spoke the same dialect. It felt as if forcing myself into his world required going through a long, unlit corridor.
I finally spotted him in front of a cigarette shop by Shibati Agricultural Market. He shouted from across the street, one hand leaning on his trusty rod and the other holding aloft a white plastic bag.
Only when I approached did I notice two pieces of bread sticking out of his pocket. Zhang said it was his lunch. I glanced at my phone. It was almost 4 p.m.
Zhang said he would show me his place. En route, he was stopped by an acquaintance who was hawking laundry detergent at 1 yuan a bottle. Someone forced a bottle on him. After a tussle, he insisted on paying the boss' wife electronically on his phone.
As we continued our journey shuttling through the alley, Zhang turned around to yell: "Remember to accept the payment!"
It was about 20 degrees Celsius in Chongqing that day. Zhang was wearing a thick brown leather jacket covered in cracks. Perhaps due to excess weight, the jacket's pockets were torn. Zhang wore a pair of blue canvas shoes, sockless. The shoes seemed slightly too big. He dragged his feet as he walked, even slipping on one occasion when he turned his head. His body appeared a bit lopsided.
Zhang rents a room at a hotel on West Jiefang Road. The approximately 10-square meter space costs 800 yuan a month. That's his biggest expense apart from tuition for his 23 kids.
The room doesn't come with the standard amenities of a hotel room. It isn't equipped with a bathroom nor bed linen. An old yellow bed lined one of the walls. A tea table occupied the other side of the room. A desk that went with the tea table was placed near the entrance. The faded surface of the desk and the dilapidated bed suggested these were relics from a prior century or second-hand items the hotel's owner had picked up.
The smell of mold permeated the room. The source was the water seeping through the walls and worn patches. The lack of windows didn't help. Aprils in Chongqing aren't that hot, yet Zhang's bed was covered with a rattan mat, which stood in stark contrast to his thick leather jacket. Two packs of medicine for indigestion were casually tossed onto the desk. The personal items offered no insight to Zhang's temperature preference, although they provided clues about his current predicament.
"Have a seat, have a seat," Zhang said as he pulled out a stool from underneath the table in the crowded hotel lobby. He wiped the stool with two pieces of tissue paper he pulled out of a box on the table while he was at it. After wiping my stool, Zhang planted himself on a stool by the corner of the room. It felt as if the entire room needed a proper wipedown to rid it of dust and the stink of sweat. Perhaps Zhang was the source of the smell.
Zhang was starving and proceeded to stuff the two pieces of bread in his mouth. "Give me a second, sister. Let me down some lunch first."
Zhang's gaping mouth was stuffed with dry bread. He struggled to swallow. With a point of a finger, the hotel owner handed Zhang a bottle of jasmine honey tea from the fridge. Not a single word was uttered. It seemed like a familiar routine.
"The bread doesn't get stuck between my teeth because I'm missing front teeth," Zhang said, breaking into laughter as I looked on with a puzzled expression.
Indeed, Zhang was missing a few teeth—the two front teeth that should have been situated under the center of his upper lip. Whenever he opens his mouth, the gap is glaring, a valve for his breath. He said he lost his front teeth during a late-night run a few years ago. "It was two steel bars. I wasn't paying attention. They knocked off my front teeth in a single blow," he told me.
The 3-yuan serving of bread and 2-dollar bottle of tea constituted Zhang's lunch. After lunch, he pulled up an image on his phone and stuck it in my face. "Look, this is my ID card. I'm a good person."
Zhang always tells people he's a good person. Yet when he's asked for evidence, he usually clams up, throws his rod on his shoulder and walks off. But a few years ago, Zhang was actually caught red-handed, so to speak. Since then, his neighbors have dubbed him "the kind muscleman." (Muscleman is another term of affection for the rodmen.)
When the incident is mentioned, Zhang is less evasive, unlike when talk shifts to the students he funds. The event drew quite a bit of attention in the vicinity of the war monument.
"Not sure what the big fuss is. All I did was take a young woman who was drunk to the hospital," he said. To this day Zhang is baffled as to why a simple deed sparked so many interview requests.
It's hard for him to fathom the way things evolved. He's still wondering why none of the many onlookers that night lent a helping hand.
The onlookers had their considerations.
Zhang still remembers the day vividly. It was 2 a.m. on Sept. 19. He had just finished a delivery to the Qixinggang area and gotten paid. The payment, which covered a few days of work, was for his kids' tuition. When he returned to Jiaochangkou and passed the nightclub Smug World, he noticed a young woman collapsed on a table at a fast food restaurant next to a bar.
At that time, Smug World was a landmark in Chongqing's nightlife. Zhang likes hanging out nearby in the evening. "Sometimes I can pick up the odd job," he said. The young woman was in her 20s. The sleeveless gauzy red and black dress she wore barely clung to her body. She was slumped on a seat near the restaurant entrance, motionless. A group of curious pedestrians stood nearby gossiping about the woman. A single glance and Zhang concluded the young woman was drunk and unconscious.
"A young woman that drunk—if a person with bad intentions comes across her, then she's in big trouble," Zhang said as he swung his rod over one shoulder and lifted the young woman over another.
The sequence of events was filmed and posted online. The attached keywords "drunk woman," "rod army" and "just after midnight" sent the video viral overnight.
Trolls who weren't in the know pounced, tossing out all sorts of conjecture and speculation. Yet the video only captured the first part of the evening.
This is how the second part of the evening unfolded. Zhang carried the woman about 300 meters to a traffic police post in Jiaochangkou. A police officer hailed a taxi, which transported Zhang and the young woman to the Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University.
The young woman was still passed out when she arrived at the hospital. Unsure how to proceed, Zhang handed over the 594 yuan he had made to the doctor and asked him to start an IV drip. After giving his instructions, Zhang left the hospital, returning to the entrance to Smug World.
After clarification from the traffic police, Zhang's name was cleared. And three days after he took the drunken woman to the hospital, Zhang enjoyed his first taste of fame.
Local journalists swarmed to Zhang, hoping to unearth more material about him, and that's when the term "the kind muscleman" was coined in news coverage.
2.
Zhang Baoyun is hardly a newcomer when it comes to good deeds. After stuffing the two pieces of bread down his throat, Zhang was about to take a sip of his tea when a young man wearing a backpack entered. He was holding a box filled with pens.
Noticing that I was taking notes, he blurted: "Sister, how about a box if pens? There are 30 in total. Only 29 yuan."
When I lifted my head, the youngster was scratching his head with his free hand. His eyes were wandering, uncertain where to focus their attention.
"I'll take a box then." As I was about to pull out my phone to pay, Zhang pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket and handed the boy three 10-yuan bills.
"Here you go, here you go. Keep the change. You must be a university student." Zhang got up to see the young man out, gently guiding him to the door while shielding him with his body, so I couldn't pay.
Thus Zhang spent 30 yuan on 30 pens for me. He insisted that I didn't pay him back. After retuning to his stool, Zhang pulled out the rest of his cash from a concealed pocket in his jacket and started counting. "Look, I made 174 yuan during the day today. Muscleman’s got cash," stressing the last to two words.
But the fact is Zhang is short on cash, extremely. He is paying for the tuition of 23 children. He started out with 80 yuan per kid a month and went up to 300 per child in the past few years. The total bill each month comes out to 6,900 yuan.
The monthly subsidy isn't paid in one lump sum. Zhang wires the children cash thrice a month—on the 8th, the 15th and the 25th. He doesn't remember how long he has been making the payments. All he remembers is that he's been funding his newest beneficiary for nearly eight years.
Zhang's first foray into charity came in the form of a one-time donation of several hundred yuan to students in impoverished mountainous regions, made through the Chongqing NGO Luye Volunteers. He eventually became a regular donor.
Zhang's beneficiaries—five children from Chongqing, 10 from Qu County in Sichuan Province and another eight from Qinghai Province—mean the world to him and also pose the greatest financial burden. When he's tight on cash, he borrows and repays the loan with his earnings the next month.
"Time flies. The five kids I've funded the longest are about to graduate from university," Zhang said softly while staring outside.
"But I still have to take care of my uncle," Zhang said after turning his attention back to me. If felt like he had just gotten back from a long walk. He got up absentmindedly, his eyes puffy, as if fresh from a night's slumber.
Zhang said he's very close to his uncle. After his parents passed away, his uncle became the bedrock of the family, he said, even though the bedrock wasn't always solid.
Sick with uremia and out of options, his life in the balance, Zhang Guowen had no choice but to call his nephew to ask for a loan. Zhang Guowen was too ill to farm, so the government put him on welfare. He has his wife couldn't bear children and had adopted a child who was only 9.
"Isn't there anyone else he can turn to?" I couldn't help but blurt. Zhang Baoyun lifted his head and paused before responding: "I'm his only relative working in a major city."
The phrases "big city" and "only relative" made for a lethal blade thrust against Zhang's neck. In his mind, he was Zhang Guoli's last glimmer of hope, being the competent one, the only relative making his living in a city.
After finding about his situation, Old Huang, the owner of the hotel where Zhang lived, suggested Zhang give Shuidi a try. Despite completing the arduous vetting process and opening an account successfully, Zhang had only raised 180 yuan by April 22 because he couldn't provide sufficient medical documentation about Zhang's condition.
Zhang never figured out exactly how the crowdfunding website works. His day-to-day life involves endless hard labor. He is mostly clueless about the latest innovations.
Even his current 2,000-yuan smartphone is a gift from a fan from Shanghai. The fan had even promised to serve as Zhang's agent and turn him into a celebrity. Zhang asked him if fame meant he could fund more children. But the fan bolted after a few days, saying Zhang's work was too much hardship.
Zhang has endured a difficult life. To this day, he struggles to put food on the table. Twenty-six years ago, 13-year-old Zhang ran away from his rural village because his family was poor. Zhang describes this period as his "taking" phase. He took food from restaurants, took money and took things. He became such a frequent "taker" he crossed paths with Officer Zhang, captain of the criminal division in Sichuan's Qu County. Officer Zhang couldn't bear seeing a teenager living on the streets, so he set Zhang Baoyun up in a folding cot in front of his house. Officer Zhang fed him leftovers and even hooked him up with a gig selling flowers.
"I sold flowers in a place where there were singing performances. They sold quickly," Zhang said in an emotional voice, as if recalling his glory days.
Shortly into his career as a flower seller, Zhang brought home a 2-year-old baby girl he found in the streets. "She was wrapped in a plastic bag, revealing her upper torso. It was covered in insect bites."
A youngster who just turned 14 and a 2-year-old abandoned baby were hardly a good match. He ended paying a snack shop owner he knew well 20 yuan a day to take care of the baby, so he was free to continue selling flowers. About a week later, an old woman who heard about the baby took her home. Only then was Zhang home free.
Then Zhang started watching a TV series called The Rod Army of the Mountain City. That's when he found his purpose in life. Just like that, a rolled mat in tow, Zhang went to Chongqing to become a rodman.
And so 24 years went by. Zhang says he planted his roots in the area surrounding the war monument. Despite moving about a dozen times, Zhang has spent the past 24 years giving his all to attach himself to the heart of the mothership.
3.
I asked Zhang why he kept funding all these kids for nothing in return. He responded instantly: "Because someone offered me a meal when I was living on the streets.
A short pause followed. Zhang looked at me and added: "I also feel I let my parents down." Because of his sudden fame in 2012, Zhang went back to his hometown on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year in early 2013. It was his first visit since leaving at age 13.
"They thought I was dead and didn't have the money to look for me." Zhang was reluctant to spend too much time at home because his fellow villagers thought he had hit the jackpot. Aware of the actual story Zhang's father borrowed 1,000 yuan and told him to head back to Chongqing ASAP.
His next trip home came when his mother died. "A myocardial infarction. She was only 63. She never got to enjoy life for a single day." After his mother's death, Zhang moved his father to Chongqing to live with him. He said he didn't want to be unfilial.
To accommodate his father, Zhang rented a larger room on the second floor of the hotel across the street from Shibati Agricultural Market. The streets in the immediate vicinity became the range of Zhang's movement. Most of the residents are on friendly terms with him. Zhang pre-ordered meals from the restaurant downstairs from the hotel. The owner summoned Zhang's dad when it was time for a meal. Zhang never showed up to eat with his dad. The routine lasted about three years.
Zhang wasn't home when his father died. The medical examiner told him that the time of death was between 2 and 3 a.m. During that period, Zhang was working odd jobs at a noodle restaurant near the war monument. A wire payment to five of his kids was due the next day and he was still short on cash.
After finishing at the noodle shop, Zhang handled shipments for another restaurant. It was already morning when he got back to his hotel. The owner of the noodle restaurant downstairs told Zhang there was no sign of his father. Typically, at around 7 a.m., the old man would be retrieving abandoned veggies near the entrance to the agricultural market.
"Oh no, he must be sick." Zhang dropped his rod and scrambled to his hotel room. It was the first time in 24 years that he chucked the tool of his trade.
Zhang was too late. When he stormed through the rickety wooden door to their room, his father lay prone on the wooden bed they shared. That became the location where Zhang's father took his last breath.
Zhang said he froze for at least a minute before approaching the bed.
"His body was stiff and he had bitten off his tongue." The final image of Zhang's father became engraved in his head.
Zhang's father had died of an epileptic fit. Zhang also remembers the aftermath of the death clearly. Police officers moved the body to a funeral home in Nan'an District for cremation. That night, Zhang went to sleep in the bed where his father died clutching the box that held his father's remains.
Zhang's expression went vacant, as if exhausted from recollecting an event that was both extremely happy and painful. He was too shy to cry, but his eyes were tinted red. After regaining his composure, he got up quickly, saying he needed to find more work, and that he'd treat me to a hotpot dinner that evening.
As soon as he stepped out of the hotel, someone offered him work as a mover. Zhang snapped back to reality instantly, dashing off as he flashed the gap in his front teeth.
As I observed Zhang at work, the owner of a neighboring cigarette shop furtively pointed me in the direction of the hotel where Zhang's father died. The hotel was still operating under same name as it did three years ago, or seven years ago for that matter. Nothing had changed.
The owner also told me that Zhang was a great guy. She said he borrowed from her occasionally, the sum ranging from 300 to 500 yuan, yet he always repaid the loan when he said he would. The owner didn't know why Zhang needed the loans. Zhang never volunteered and the owner never asked.
The owner of the cigarette shop and Zhang's other neighbors also know that a few years ago Zhang helped a teenager who ran away from home. He also helped pay for the medical expenses of a homeless women who had just given birth. The bottom line is that everyone said Zhang is a great person who's kind to everyone but himself.
When he reached Kaixuan Road, Zhang pulled out his cash and paid for the elevator proficiently. The whole process didn't take more than 10 seconds. After Zhang paid, he grinned at me. "I'm too tired to walk. I want to take the elevator too," he said.
The elevator was convenient indeed. In 5 minutes, Zhang stood in the middle of the embankment near Smug World. I'm not sure if he was simply canvassing or showing me around, but he covered every floor several times. Almost everyone knew him. Many asked: "Have you had dinner yet, muscleman? If not, just pull up a chair."
"Look, most people are kind," Zhang said as he pulled out his phone. "Not matter how bad the bad guy, he also has a kind side to him. If we think about kindness more often, everything will get better."
After the comment, Zhang gave his older sister a call. He did all the talking. The conversation revolved around his uncle. His sister didn't respond, only muttering that she was busy before hanging up. After being hung up on, Zhang appeared to be at a loss briefly.
Without thinking I pulled out my phone and transferred 200 yuan to Zhang via WeChat. He also whipped out his phone to return the payment. Zhang only held off when I told him I would stop looking him up if he refused the gift. After accepting the payment, Zhang transferred the 200 yuan to a relative. Then he made a video call to one of Zhang Guowen's roommates and had his uncle thank me in person. The elder Zhang said thank you five times.
4.
Zhang Baoyun insisted on treating me to a hotpot dinner that night. He only gave up after I told him to save the money for his uncle. I suggested treating him to a snack, but he refused. Instead, he entered a neighboring hotpot restaurant and emerged with a bowl of egg fried rice.
"Courtesy of the owner. I can come for a serving anytime," he said. As he delivered big portions of rice to his mouth, he complained of fatigue. He said he was going take a nap after dinner before his 3 a.m. gig unloading veggies at the wet market.
The 3 to 5 a.m. job has been Zhang's most consistent work of late. The income generated accounted for a big chunk of his kids' tuition.
"You see, I'm not lonely at all. These are my friends," Zhang said, one hand carrying the ceramic bowl that contained what was left of dinner, the other pointing to several young men approaching on a downward escalator. Donning identical suits, the young men headed toward a restaurant as they chuckled among themselves. They never turned their heads, apparently oblivious to the waving Zhang. Perhaps they didn't know each other at all.
The cold shoulder didn't bother Zhang. He finished his meal, lifted his head and turned around.
"My uncle can pay for his dialysis tomorrow," Zhang said with a smile that revealed his missing tooth, as he took in the crowds exiting the glamorous backdrop of Smug World.