Despite China's long association with bicycles, there is one region of the country where bikes hardly exist. In the mountainous and isolated cities along the Yangtze River gorges, its as if the bicycle or even the wagon was never invented, as if transportation evolution jumped over the simple wheel from walking straight to gasoline engines. The steep narrow streets and staircases of these towns built between on the bluffs along the big river have kept bicycles out of street culture for a hundred years. Aside from the modernized freeways ringing the cities in traffic jams and diesel smoke, the only way to get around these places is on foot, and if you want to haul something you have to carry it by hand, on your head, on your shoulders or on your back.

The scavengers of Chongqing make due with cargo baskets that can be carried like backpacks or pulled by a string on tiny rollerskate wheels.

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But most cargo in these Yangtze towns is carried on poles over the shoulder. Huge numbers of "stick-stick men", as they are called, roam the streets looking for jobs to do, like hauling office paper downtown, or unload boats down at the wharf. They are mostly poor peasants from the countryside trying to make a little money, and the only investment required to get into the portering business is a stout bamboo pole and a rope sling.