Advertisement on the big screen in Chongqing's Guanyinqiao business district on August 24, 2024. Visual China / Figure
After the rain at the end of September, Chongqing finally cooled down and fell into autumn.
Previously, the late summer and early autumn in Chongqing heat into a huge oven. At the end of August, Chongqing issued a red warning for more than ten days of high temperatures, and I came here to interview, walking on the streets at noon, my pace would quicken, my mind would be clouded, my consciousness could not keep up with the action, and I thought in a trance that I was the ingredient for the imminent Maillard reaction.
As an Internet celebrity tourist city, Chongqing's scenic spots sell mostly Chinese-style folding fans used to check in and take pictures, and at first I was proud of preparing a portable electric fan for myself in advance, but I was soon "slapped in the face": in the oven, the hot air circulation will only accelerate the dehydration and ripening of the ingredients.
Before reporting on ", I knew that the earth was experiencing one "hottest summer" after another, and I had seen a lot of data analysis and professional articles, but I had never touched people struggling to survive in the hot weather.
After a street sweeping interview, I found that in this "8D" city with a complex and three-dimensional spatial layout, high temperature is only an additional effect.
"It's better to go back to the bubble tea shop, at least there is an air conditioner blowing"
Delivery workers are vulnerable to high temperatures that were included in the key interviews.
At the bubble tea shop "Chayan Yuese" near the Liberation Monument, I met a group of young delivery people, who provided riders with free ice water, milk tea tasting, and the largest number of delivery orders, so it became their docking location.
Before coming to Chongqing, I swiped on Douyin that a day ago, a Meituan rider collapsed from heat stroke in Bishan, Chongqing, and I asked the riders present, but I didn't expect that everyone didn't know each other. I was worried about the interview, when a girl came to the front of me on a bicycle and heard my question, she came up with a smile on her face, "I'm suffering from heat stroke."
This girl with the pseudonym Li Yingying, who came to Chongqing to deliver food less than a month, lost her way the first time she went to Hongya Cave, was out of breath in the crowded crowd, and fainted as soon as she left the scenic spot.
How hot is it? Put the ice cubes from the bubble tea shop into the lunch box, and basically melt them after running an order.
However, the reason for Li Yingying's fainting is not only high temperature, but also low blood sugar. Before coming to Chongqing, she worked at a bubble tea shop in Yibin, Sichuan, and although she later became the store manager, she said that she only had a salary of 3,000 yuan a month.
After spending all her savings, she came to Chongqing to start a "new life", but she didn't expect it to become even harder. As the only female rider at the site, she has to pay higher rents than her male colleagues. In order to save 5 yuan for an hour of "air conditioning" and 10 yuan for a wash (in addition to the rent), she was only willing to blow the electric fan at night at 30 degrees Celsius and wash her clothes by hand.
According to the schedule, Li Yingying worked from 10:30 in the morning to 12 in the middle of the night, with only an hour and a half of rest in between. At the end of the day, she ran 38 singles and ranked 16th in the entire site. She told me that the reason why the first place was able to run 53 orders was because he started working at 7 o'clock in the morning.
I calculated the accounts with Li Yingying, joined on August 1, she had to wait until mid-September to get the first salary, according to more than 800 orders a month, she could get more than 4,000 yuan in salary, but after deducting tooling, lunch boxes, car and electricity bills, dormitory rent and water and electricity, how much can be left?
And that's not even counting the medical bills. In the first 10 days of her takeaway run, she fell eleven times with people and cars — sometimes to avoid pedestrians, sometimes because the road was slippery in the rain. I saw that her arms were covered with scars that had just fallen off, the new flesh had not yet grown, and it was still dark red, but she looked like she didn't care, she was distressed by the medical expenses of fainting from heat stroke and going to the hospital, more than 300 yuan, and now she still owes her colleagues. "It's better to go back to the bubble tea shop, at least there is an air conditioner blowing." The rider next to him quipped.
The heat is a straw, not a mountain
For passers-by and indoor workers, the heat is painful but relatively short-lived – a quick escape to the heat and take refuge in an air-conditioned room.
Even so, everyone will still chatter on social media: the night scene after the power rationing is not gorgeous enough, and there is no way to take pictures; The downward elevator in public places is shut down, and it is difficult to go downstairs; The air conditioner in the office should not be lower than 28°C, and you must bring your own ice cubes to work; Some public charging piles are closed, and new energy vehicles sometimes cannot be charged......
As for railmen, sanitation workers, and delivery workers, the high temperature is long and unavoidable, and most people can only bear it silently.
He Huachun, an urban rail welder, insists on drinking hot water on hot days in order to work for a few more years before the age of 60 (the upper age limit for male construction workers).
Still, the climatic heat is a straw for them, not a mountain, and the hardships of life seem to be more intense than the 40°C heatwave.
The Bangbang army who picked up goods at Chaotianmen Wharf has witnessed the ups and downs of the wholesale clothing market in the past decade - the hot weather will postpone the new autumn and winter clothes, but more importantly, after the rise of online stores, fewer and fewer people come to the wholesale market to buy clothes.
Similarly, there are wet markets. The high temperatures make it easier for fruits and vegetables on the shelves to rot in the open air, but the harder part of the business is fresh e-commerce – buying groceries online and delivering them to your doorstep, and people and vegetables are beaten by the heat.
The manager of the hot pot restaurant also found that the high temperature scared off many tourists. The chairs, which are arranged in three rows at the entrance and are waiting for guests to sit down, are almost like decorations.
I originally thought that wholesale ice cream was a good industry for high temperatures, but the owners of several stores were sad. A female shopkeeper in her forties stuffed me with an original mung bean sorbet, saying that it was the best seller in the store, but the profit was too thin for one dollar.
"I'll give it to you, you can taste it, I think it's delicious." She couldn't figure out why business was so difficult, and she asked herself, maybe because the weather was too hot, everyone was at home. Seeing that I scanned the code and wanted to transfer money, she straightened her face, "I just want you to try it." It's not easy on a hot day. ”
After leaving the wholesale market, the sorbet melted instantly at 40°C, and I ate it in a hurry, and it tasted really good, not as sweet as the "green mood". But in contrast, I still prefer to buy a cold drink and drink it slowly.
When I turned on my phone, I was still on the page of entering the payment amount, and the boss looked at the freezer and was worried. 1 dollar is insignificant, but sometimes, a small kindness is very heavy in my heart, and after a few seconds of hesitation, I still transfer the money.
Southern Weekly reporter Huang Siqi
Editor-in-charge: Wang Tao