Across China: Porter pride on Mount Tai

Just before Spring Festival, Lu Hong, 47, shouldering over 50 kg on a carrying pole finishes his journey of more than 3,000 steps up Mount Tai and takes a well-deserved rest.

As a porter on Mount Tai in eastern China's Shandong Province, Lu has to slog up the winding mountain road two or three times every day in busy season.

"After work, porters have a drink or a cigarette, but I don't drink or smoke. What I really like is listening to music and browsing WeChat. The most happy moment for me is counting how much I can earn each day," Lu said.

Mount Tai, one of China's Five Sacred Mountains, holds great historical and cultural significance, and its peak is referred to as the "Jade Emperor Peak," which is approximately 1,500 meters above sea level.

The story of porters on Mount Tai was included in textbooks in China's primary schools in the 1980s. Though they may fade into history one day, they have been an indispensable part of the culture of the mountain.

In Lu's eyes, the work is fine despite the low income.

"I get a monthly payment of about 4,000 yuan (about 581 U.S. dollars). Our salary payment has never been delayed," he said.

Most porters on Mount Tai are satisfied with their work, and the freedom and stable salaries are the two main reasons.

For retired porter Tian Liping, it was a decent job admired by many.

"Porters earned a lot in the 1980s. We used to start work at 6 a.m. and get home around 10 a.m. which meant that we still had time to do housework or farm work during the daytime after work," Tian said. "Carrying 50 kg of goods uphill could earn three yuan in cash, which was a big sum back then."

"At that time, township officials only earned dozens of yuan each month. By comparison, porters could earn quick money," he said.

Porters are also happy and optimistic people.

"Pessimistic people cannot become good porters," said Wang Yulin, an employee with the museum of Tai'an city, where Mount Tai is located.

Tourists on Mount Tai think the porters simply transport groceries such as food, bottled water, vegetables and fruit uphill, but they do more than that.

Porters also contributed to the construction of the mountain's scenic areas.

Chen Guangwu, a retired porter in his 70s, said that porters in the 1980s and 1990s played an important role in the construction of the ropeways on the mountain.

The ropeway equipment was imported from Austria. The major component was an axle which was 9.5 meters long and weighed four tonnes. A helicopter refused to lift the heavy load, but Chen accepted the work without hesitation.

Chen gathered 150 porters to set up a frame to help the transportation. Over four days, they carried the axle uphill passing through the most winding courses and taking the 3,000 steep steps. The total payment for the "impossible mission" at that time was 30,000 yuan. Each porter got about 20 yuan per day.

"The salary was not high but we felt we deserved it, and that we had done a great thing," Chen said.

"The bricks of the Confucius temple, the meteorological station and the ropeway at Nantianmen on the mountain were all shouldered uphill by us," said Sun Diankun, a former porter in his 60s.

Sun said that the mountain becomes more and more beautiful and the facilities are more convenient and tourist-friendly.

"Porters not only transporters of groceries but also the major construction workers of the mountain," said Zhao Pingjiang, chief of a porter group.

However, less people are choosing to become porters. The once attractive career is fading into history.

"Our team was established in 1983 when there were seven or eight porter groups. In 2000, my team had over 300 porters but now we have only a dozen," Zhao said.

"We used to worry about how to find enough accommodation for them," he said. "Now, we have to figure out how to improve living conditions to retain them," he said.

Porters today find it harder to get work as a cargo transportation ropeway opened in 2003. The price for goods to be transported on the ropeway is 0.3 yuan per kilogram, about half the cost of employing a porter.

Zhao said that porters would not be phased out immediately as they could deliver goods from the cargo ropeway station to each store on the mountain, which is welcomed by business owners.

"In addition, the ropeway can only carry goods to a maximum of 300 kg. Some heavy goods which can not be split up still rely on porters for transportation," he said.

The youngest porter in Zhao's group is 39-year-old Xu Yong, and they have struggled to find successors in the past decade. Endi