Chongqing | Encountering the secret language of the mountain city in the folds of time

When the mist began to dissipate, the bluestone steps absorbed the morning dew of the Jialing River, and the hot steam of soy milk and fried dough sticks surged out from the folds of the Eighteen Ladders. The Sichuan opera sleeves that had not dried last night were drying in the stilt houses. The moment the cable car cables cut through the river fog, the whole city was slowly stretching its muscles to the sound of the whistle from Chaotianmen Wharf.

This is a maze that uses stairs to measure time. The gilded hands of the Jiefang Monument and the flying eaves of Hongya Cave have a vertical dialogue in the eleven-story space. The moment the Liziba light rail passes through the building, the steel forest and the roots of the yellow poplar trees are secretly entangled in the concrete, folding the magic of the mountain city into a three-dimensional topological map - you can never guess whether the next corner will be an air-raid shelter bookstore with the aroma of pepper, or an old teahouse with tungsten filament bulbs.

The Yangtze River Cableway is a suspended time capsule, carrying an old lady selling cold shrimps on her shoulder and a programmer wearing Bluetooth headsets, exchanging morning and evening in the sparkling waves. The neon lights of Nanbin Road climb along the mountain ridges, dyeing the confluence of the two rivers into a flowing galaxy. In the nine-square grid of boiling hot pot, tripe and duck blood are performing a spicy symphony.

Deep in the alley, the old barber's copper basin is filled with memories of the Republic of China, and a few retired teachers are fiddling with the incomplete scores of Sichuan River Haozi under a banyan tree. When the glass curtain wall of WFC reflects the longitude and latitude of the steel cables of Qiansimen Bridge, you will find that this city has always maintained a delicate balance between deconstruction and reconstruction - just like the Chen Mahua in Ciqikou, which has the crispy aftertaste of the Ming and Qing commercial ports, and is wrapped in the burnt aroma of modern baking.

As night falls, countless lenses grow from the viewing platform of a tree in Nanshan, and the shutters click one after another to capture the waterfalls of light on the two rivers and four banks. The real gourmets have already escaped to the night beer world of Keyuan 4th Road, drinking iced Guobin and listening to the barbecue stall owner's explanation in Chongqing dialect with salt and pepper: "This city is a star made from hot pot, and the haziness of the foggy city is precisely its clearest soul footnote.
#Mountain City #Chongqing

Post by xkeke | Jun 1, 2025