A new profession in China: a handsome rock climber (6 photos)

He can't just be handsome and he can't just be a rock climber. A new, extremely heated services market has appeared in China, but there is something frankly sad about it.





"Take a friend to the mountains, take a risk"

The thing is that Chinese young people who are keen on rock climbing sometimes have a hard time finding a partner for a climb, especially for a long one. And now they hire guys for these positions, and their salary depends not on the difficulty of the trail, but on how attractive they are.

That's because everyone wants to post their climb and photos from above on social media, and beautiful young people get more likes and views, especially in China, where lookism is at its peak, almost like in Korea.

The trend of searching for a "climbing partner" has gained 100 million searches - some just to look, and some to hire.



Many climbs in China SUDDENLY are on ladders, not on trails

And now young, athletic people, often university students or even war veterans, advertise themselves on social media platforms, indicating their height, level of fitness and hiking experience in their profiles. They usually charge between 200 and 600 yuan per trip.

During the climb, these "climbing partners" do everything to distract their clients from the feeling of fatigue and make them continue climbing. They sing, tell jokes, play musical instruments, verbally encourage them, even carry their bags, hold their hands and pull them along.





A partner carries a Chinese flag and sings, I would go crazy with him...

The girls are delighted - you can go to the mountain, but not carry your backpack. It reminds me of a Sherpa when climbing the Himalayas, it's just a regular climb in some nature park for five hours...

The main clients of climbing partners are usually single young women, but this is gradually changing. For some reason, they are also hired by couples with a child or one parent, so that the partner carries their child up and plays with him. Why take a three-year-old child to the mountain - this is another secret of the Chinese mentality for me.



There are a lot of beautiful mountains in China, but tourism is more like a staircase than real climbing

A nice guide gets 20,000 yuan a month, which is much more than ordinary students with part-time jobs, their salary is around 20,000 yuan (ten times less). Moreover, you can do about 40 climbs a month (all of them are short, girls do not like to get too tired). But for two climbs a day you need to be in very good physical shape. And strong knees, so much walking up the mountain.

Why is this a sad trend

Because the Chinese don't have true friends that they can take with them to the mountains. Remember Vysotsky's song about testing friends with mountains?



A hired partner carries a child to the mountains on his shoulders

And in China, the trend of "easy friends" or lunch friends is currently at its peak among young people. That is, these are people with whom you can see for lunch, but not develop a real relationship, because it is too burdensome and lazy. After all, you need to maintain a relationship with them and ask how they are doing. Modern youth considers this to be as much work as work, and they are already tired.

And if there is no one to take to the mountains, they will quickly find you a partner for money.



"Cool" partners give their "mistress" a massage