Shiba Ti (Eighteen Steps) 十八梯

Welcome, everyone! You've arrived at the very soul of old Chongqing — Shiba Ti Traditional Historic District. Today I'll be taking you along the official recommended route: The Grand Paifang of Shiba Ti $\rightarrow$ Shanguojuan and the Mountain City Memory Museum $\rightarrow$ Yuetaiba (Hillside Courtyard) $\rightarrow$ The Da Suidao Tunnel Ruins. We'll descend step by step, climbing down the slopes as we travel back through time to touch the most authentic memories of this founding city.

We're currently standing at the Grand Paifang of Shiba Ti, right here at Jiaochangkou. For those visiting Chongqing for the first time, this spot offers a truly surreal urban scene: behind you stands the gleaming, high-rise world of the Jiefangbei commercial district, while ahead of you an ancient cobblestone stairway drops steeply down the hillside, disappearing into the layers below. In earlier times, this was the main artery connecting the political and commercial hub of the Upper Town with the docks and river trade of the Lower Town. Legend has it that back in the Ming dynasty, there was a well here, exactly eighteen steps from the nearest homes — and that is how "Shiba Ti," meaning Eighteen Steps, got its name. Take a moment to look at this paifang gate, crafted entirely from timber, with upswept eaves and a commanding presence. From this point on, the noise of the modern city will gradually fade away. Step down onto the stone stairs and walk with me into the heart of old Chongqing's street life.

Follow the cobblestone steps down through a few turns into this quiet lane, and you've arrived at Shanguojuan and the Mountain City Memory Museum.

For anyone who wants a fast, vivid sense of Chongqing's past and present, this is the one venue you absolutely cannot skip. The name Shanguojuan comes from the traditional Chinese idea of "good causes bearing good fruit." The lane is lined on both sides by classic Ba-Yu chuandou timber-frame buildings, and the Mountain City Memory Museum in front of us was created within the bones of an original old house. Follow me inside: the museum uses advanced 3D holographic projection alongside old photographs and everyday objects to bring back to life the street scenes of old Chongqing — the shoulder-pole carriers, the "bangbang" porters, the roadside barbers, and all the characters of working-class city life. The centrepiece to focus on is the diaojiaolou model display in the middle of the main hall. It shows clearly how Chongqing's early residents managed to build entire homes on sheer cliff faces using nothing more than a handful of wooden posts — a genuine feat of vernacular engineering. Once you've taken it all in, step back to a window and look out at the old street below. You'll feel the weight of that history in a completely different way.

Coming out of the Memory Museum, continue down the main stone stairway, then turn left into a slightly more open, level area — this is Yuetaiba.

Take a moment to stop here and look around. The ground rises in a crescent shape, which is exactly how the place got its name: yuetai means "moon platform." For visitors from abroad, Yuetaiba is the spot that best captures the traditional residential aesthetic of China's southwest mountain communities. Look at the courtyards around you: they're nothing like the symmetrical siheyuan courtyard compounds of northern China's flat plains. Here, everything follows the slope — stacked, staggered, and intertwined with the landscape. One family's rooftop is the next family's front yard. Grey brick and dark roof tiles weave seamlessly into the roots of the ancient huangjue fig trees that grow between the walls. Look closely at the carved wooden window lattices and the worn stone steps weathered by decades of rain — they tell the story of how Chongqing's residents made every inch of difficult mountain terrain work for them, a philosophy sometimes described as "making a grand ceremony in a snail's shell." This was also a favourite retreat for scholars and officials of earlier times, and even now the place carries a quality of elegant restraint that feels close to classical Chinese garden design.

Leaving Yuetaiba, we return to the main stairway and descend toward the lower end of the district. On your right, cut deep into the living rock, you'll see a vast stone cavern — this is our final destination today: the Da Suidao Tunnel Ruins.

Standing here, I want to share a piece of history that is both profoundly moving and deeply sobering. During the Second World War, Chongqing served as China's wartime capital, and for years it endured relentless, devastating bombing raids carried out by Japanese forces. To survive, the people of Chongqing carved air-raid tunnels stretching for kilometres through solid bedrock — with their bare hands. The ruins in front of us are part of what was once the famous Jiaochangkou tunnel network. Look carefully at the heavy iron door, its surface marked and worn by time, and at the relief carvings and inscriptions on the rock walls nearby. They record in silence the story of a city's people holding onto each other in the dark, refusing to break. It is here, in front of these tunnel ruins that carry the scars and the rebirth of an entire city, that our journey through Shiba Ti comes to an end. I hope that walking this path — up and down, through layers of time — has shown you not just Chongqing's beauty, but the iron will that has always run through this city's backbone. Thank you all, and enjoy the rest of your travels.