Impressions of Fuling
On February 22, the sixth day of the Chinese New Year, I took an old green train east to Fuling, hoping to find the river town Peter Hessler wrote about.
Green Train
It was my first time riding one of those old green trains. The hard seat was not truly hard. It felt more like a dorm mattress a few centimeters thick. But in the next second I was told to get up because the seat already had an owner. I had no choice but to step over piles of luggage and stand in a narrow space outside the toilet door.
The K-series train, running from Beijing West to a county-level destination near Chongqing, was packed with passengers. I had bought a standing ticket from Chongqing North to Fuling Station for 15.5 yuan right at the station, and at that moment I truly regretted it: someone was smoking. This train was not like the full no-smoking rules on CRH services, so I could not really say much. Fortunately, the windows on this old train were loose, and outside air kept pushing in through every gap.
From Chongqing North to Fuling Station was only a bit over 100 kilometers, but the green train still took more than an hour. My feet were trapped by bags, and I faced a toilet door that no one was using but still would not open. Behind me, at least, was a large window where I could turn and glance at Chongqing’s mountains and water. Yet more than half the ride was just the dark wall of tunnels, and during the other half, the mountain views were cramped rather than open. It was hard to call it scenery.
I turned back and observed the people in the carriage. Most were middle-aged or elderly. I did not see any young person besides myself. Next to me sat an auntie on a suitcase, hard to guess her age. Across from her, by the wall, a man crouched while watching short videos, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. I guessed he was her husband. To his right stood another auntie, also hard to guess in age. They had not started out in this corner either. Like us, they had all been squeezed here by the crowd.
The two women started chatting and laughing in Chongqing dialect as if they had known each other for years. One asked where she had come from and where she was heading. The other said she was going back to Fuling after doing migrant work somewhere in Hebei. Then came the question of age. She said she was in her forties, not yet fifty. The first auntie was surprised. So was I. She looked much older: gray hair, yellow-dark cracked skin, someone who seemed to have spent half a life under harsh sun in fields or construction sites. She gave an embarrassed laugh and said migrant work was too exhausting, so she was going to visit relatives in Fuling. I could not follow much after that. Understanding older-generation Chongqing dialect is a real challenge for me.
The train emerged from another tunnel. A few young people came from the left side of the carriage, pointed over, and asked the auntie if they could make a bit of room. She said goodbye to us and left with them. I guessed one might be her daughter. The auntie beside me looked a little reluctant to see her go.
That tunnel seemed to be the last one before arrival. A few more minutes and we reached Fuling Station. It is a regular railway station, not big, and no high-speed trains stop there. Right outside is a bus stop, and with some luck, there was a bus going to Baiheliang.
Baiheliang
The place I wanted to visit is officially called the Baiheliang Underwater Museum. It is named after an original stone ridge locals call “Baiheliang.” It is also famous for having part of its exhibition hall underwater, which makes it one of Fuling’s key attractions.
Fuling buses are not unusual in style, but service is sparse and passengers are many, so seats are hard to get anytime. There is also a small TV playing local ads.
The bus dropped me somewhere in Fuling. The map app said I only had a few hundred meters left to walk. But I was surrounded by residential buildings, and I thought, should a museum not be by the river? I looked over the roadside railing and realized it was more than ten meters below me. The elevation change was steep, and I had to step down carefully.
After queueing for less than half an hour, I got in smoothly. At the entrance you can see the full Baiheliang stone. It looked one to two meters long and fifty to sixty centimeters wide, carved with wave patterns and twin fish. A free museum guide explained that what we saw there was a replica. Legend says when the original ridge was exposed above water, two white cranes often perched on it, which gave it the name Baiheliang. The carvings date back over a thousand years. The guide was funny too. Two children climbed onto the stone and would not come down, and he said, “Kids, if you keep climbing cultural relics, the museum will blacklist you, and you won’t be able to visit museums anymore.”
More than twenty years ago, the Three Gorges Project raised the Yangtze water level and submerged part of Fuling. In ancient times, this very area worked as a hydrological station on the Yangtze. People carved water-level records into stone, along with poetic inscriptions, including famous ones by Huang Tingjian and Zhu Xi. They also left a clever design: two stone fish carved in the same direction, so no matter how water levels changed, the waterline tended to hover near the fish eyes.
Before impoundment, these carvings were exposed along the riverbank and could be seen directly. After the water rose, they would be deeply submerged. Experts called for urgent protection, and eventually a proposal to build an underwater museum was adopted.
After touring the inscription rubbings and displays with the guide, I took a long escalator down to the underwater section, over forty meters below ground. Through a heavy hatch door was a corridor. On the left wall were projections of the inscriptions; on the right was a row of waist-high porthole windows. Through the glass, the carved stones lay facing me. But the characters were too small to read clearly. The glass was very clean. The guide said it was the same type used on the J-20, and staff regularly clean the outside.
The whole underwater walk was under 100 meters. I passed another hatch and took the escalator back up.
When I came out and checked my watch, only a little over an hour had passed. Baiheliang was not exactly stunning. Its core value is the unique inscriptions, but I felt its deeper meaning was emotional memory for Fuling people. The museum is free for visitors from Zhejiang, because when rising Yangtze waters submerged parts of Fuling, Zhejiang received many relocated Fuling residents.
Wu River
Fuling sits where the Yangtze and Wu rivers meet. In high-water season, their confluence shows a clear dividing line, one side green and the other yellow. Unfortunately this was low-water season. I stood on the riverside plaza for a long time before I could make out the faint boundary.
Weather forecasts in Chongqing are not always accurate. The night before I left, it showed a 90% chance of thunderstorms, but I happened to hit the 10% clear window. The sun was blazing, my backpack stuck to my back, and even my light jacket became unbearable, so I took it off and stayed in a short-sleeve shirt. What puzzled me was that nobody else seemed hot. I did not see a second person on the road in short sleeves. Everyone else still wore a jacket.
I left the plaza to check in at the cover-photo location of River Town, near Wujiang Bridge. There were only two or three people on the bus, and when I got off, only one other passenger remained, heading in a different direction.
In a mountain city, map apps are not always enough. There are many roads, but often stacked at different heights in the same vertical space, which makes navigation messy. The best way is to ask locals. I bought a bottle of water at a convenience store and showed the owner the cover photo on my phone. At first she did not recognize it as her hometown scene. After staring for a moment, she pointed roughly and said it was that way.
I thanked her and walked across the road. The Wu River spread out in front of me like a ribbon. I went up a pedestrian bridge toward Wujiang Bridge, and the emerald water looked even more magnificent. The red bridge stretched across the river like cinnabar brushed over a green carpet. Warm sunlight scattered gold flakes on the water. As the breeze moved, the light danced in endless ripples.
I looked up and saw the exact cover view from the book. It was Fuling’s old urban area. Comparing photo and reality, I found little had changed after all these years. The low red roofs on the riverbank were still there, a few old boats still tied along shore, and the Fuling Hotel still stood as the tallest nearby building. The difference was that ferries no longer crisscrossed like in the book, and distant buildings looked veiled in haze.
I decided to walk onto Wujiang Bridge itself. Looking east was the sunlit side: clear blue sky and green water. On the west side, large ships passed and disappeared deeper into the Wu River. Sunlight plated the trees and water in gold, creating an entirely different scene.
Chaqi Mountain
Back on the east bank, I remembered Hessler’s writing. The thing that stayed with me most was climbing Chaqi Mountain. So I hailed a ride and set the destination to “Chaqi Mountain.”
According to local lore, during the Taiping Rebellion, Shi Dakai captured Fuling and planted a flag on this mountain to mark control, which is where the name came from.
Hessler wrote that when he taught at the normal college, he often ran up Chaqi Mountain.
“Really? I’ve lived here for years and never heard that,” the driver said.
As soon as I got in, the driver asked where exactly Chaqi Mountain was. After hearing my description, he said he knew and started driving, muttering to himself.
“Which Chaqi Mountain are you even going to? It’s not the one in Jiangdong, right?”
That was when I realized I had picked the wrong destination. I did want Chaqi Mountain, but the place I meant was called Chaqi Mountain Orchard Park.
“That’s what I thought. I was wondering why your app route looked so far. I told you, rides there are hard to get.”
I scratched my head in embarrassment and asked him to turn around and take me back to where I had boarded, regretting another wasted fare.
“If you don’t know the road, ask locals. We Fuling people are all very friendly.”
I thanked him and returned to where I had just been.
I was anxious. I had already booked a three-night hotel in Chongqing’s main urban area. If I did not go back that night, one night would be wasted. If I went up the mountain now, would I still get a ride later? After coming down, could I still hail a car? The last train from Fuling Station back to the main city was gone, and Fuling North Station was far out.
I asked AI for options and got two: give up the climb, or ask a driver to wait twenty minutes on top and then go to Fuling North.
I chose the second one. I might not get another chance to come.
But no driver accepted my uphill request. I raised the fare three times and still got no takers. Strangely, when I lowered the fare back, someone accepted.
This driver had an even stronger Chongqing accent. As soon as I got in, she started complaining, not caring whether I could fully follow.
“Handsome guy, I did not even want this order. I clicked it by mistake. If I cancel, I get penalized. My hand was too fast!” she laughed at the wheel. “Fuling drivers do not like taking passengers to Chaqi Mountain. After one trip they want to blacklist the place. The uphill road is really rough.”
She asked if I was going for the night view, and I said yes.
“Then you should go to Beishan Park. The view there is better.”
I repeated what I had said to the previous driver. Then I told her rides down from Chaqi Mountain were difficult and asked whether she could wait at the top and then drive me to Fuling North Station.
The uphill road was indeed rough. She chose a wider route, which was safer but longer.
“Do roads in your hometown get this hard?”
“Much flatter,” I said, a little proudly. “Some roads don’t even have guardrails.”
She accelerated confidently through the mountain road. Fuling lights streaked outside the window. The city sank into misty night, reminding me of a summer in Hong Kong years ago when I took a wild minibus up Victoria Peak.
Chaqi summit is nothing like the bustle of Victoria Peak. At night it was dark, with barely any streetlights. You needed a flashlight to walk, and branches blocked much of the view.
Fuling’s nightscape is not very colorful. Mostly warm yellow lights dot the city. Looking toward Wujiang Bridge I had crossed by day, it felt like someone had brushed a few pale-yellow strokes across a black canvas. Building outlines were faintly visible.
I found a flat rock, set my camera on it, and took a few quick shots as a keepsake, then hurried back to the car and headed for Fuling North Station.
Ride-hailing
From Chaqi Mountain to Fuling North is about 30 kilometers. We chatted the whole way. Fuling people really are warm.
She asked whether I had visited Baiheliang or 816. I said I had not gone to 816 because I was short on time.
“Then you should stay in Fuling overnight. 816 is huge and really shocking. Missing it is such a pity.”
She was talking about the “816 Underground Nuclear Project,” a former nuclear facility now open to the public after declassification.
I asked whether she had read River Town. She had not.
“Back in 1997 or 1998, an American taught at Fuling Teachers College and wrote stories about those years.”
“He wrote about our Fuling? Sounds a little familiar.”
She said she was born in the 1970s and was in high school in the 1990s, so maybe the details were blurry.
Then she started sharing her own life. She has a son in his twenties. He had worked at a company with poor pay, quit after half a year, and now studies online-customer-service work at home while earning a little money.
I asked how she entered the ride-hailing industry. She said she had never planned to do it long-term, only as a transition. The job market left little choice.
“I used to work in Shenzhen for a woman boss. One Spring Festival she, another coworker, and I were going back to Chongqing together. We bought tons of New Year goods, arrived very early at Shenzhen West Station, sat down, and started playing cards. We got so into it that none of us noticed our train had arrived and left. When another train came, my boss thought it was ours and told us to pack up and board quickly. She followed the ticket info to find the berth, but someone was already lying there.”
‘Here is my berth, sis?’
‘No, this is my berth?’
“Both my boss and that woman took out their tickets. The berth number matched, but not the same train.”
“We backed out awkwardly. The three of us looked at each other, and nobody remembered boarding at all. The conductor was kind and let us stay on while she arranged replacement tickets.”
“I still cannot forget that scene. The three of us squatting on the train with huge bags, looking like beggars. Even now, it is vivid in my mind.”
She laughed loudly, and I laughed with her. We reached Fuling North while talking. I asked whether the station was large. She said no, but the local government was considering expansion.
“Handsome guy, Fuling North is here!” She dropped me at the basement entrance and reminded me before leaving, “Remember to give me a good rating in the app. Full stars!”
“Of course. Your service deserves five stars.” I thanked her, closed the door, took the elevator to the waiting hall, and she turned away.
In the app, while finding the rating page, I noticed she had completed over a thousand rides with a perfect 5.0 score. Now I am one of those thousand-plus ratings. I do not know whether she will remember the out-of-town passenger she drove on Lunar New Year Day Six, but I will not forget the two drivers I met that evening. The other driver had just started ride-hailing. I was his sixth passenger.
Their screens both kept popping up voice messages from driver group chats. Maybe after dropping me off, they joked that I was a clueless kid. Just as I am writing their stories here, maybe they were writing mine in their own way. We are all coloring each other’s lives.
Epilogue
Just as the driver said, Fuling North is not big, and there were not many people waiting. As usual, I could only get a standing ticket. Ticket check, boarding.
The bullet train was nearly twice as fast as the green train. In less than an hour, the familiar lights of Chongqing’s main city reappeared.
The main city is Chongqing. Fuling is also Chongqing. But my impression of Fuling is different from my impression of Chongqing. Chongqing, to me, means the bustling Hongyadong, the must-visit Jiefangbei, the train-through-building at Liziba. Fuling, to me, is an untouched simplicity that has survived rapid development. Fuling is not my home. Before this trip, my life had no connection to it. Yet Fuling felt like a stranger’s hometown.
This trip was too rushed and barely planned, mostly stream-of-consciousness wandering. I did not get to eat Fuling’s famous tofu rice, did not taste authentic Fuling pickled mustard, and did not visit the awe-inspiring 816 project the driver told me about. I hope I get another chance to return and feel Fuling again.
Further Reading
Stop 1: Baiheliang Underwater Museum - Fuling District People’s Government of Chongqing