
Amir&Jeff’s Excellent China Adventure Series. 2025: Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian and Shaanxi Provinces’ Red Tour. Short videos, captioned photos, articles and commentary. The REAL Chinese people you don’t know!
https://radiosinoland.com/2025/07/27/amirjeffs-excellent-china-adventure-series-2025-hunan-jiangxi-fujian-and-shaanxi-provinces-red-tour-short-videos-captioned-photos-articles-and-commentary-the-real-chinese-people-you-
Commentary about city tiers, population trends and life among the Chinese
What is a town? What is a city? What is a village?
China has 1000s of cities and towns, depending on your definition. In Taiwan province, we live in Nantou, Puli, which has 85,000 inhabitants. Is that a city or a town? In Mainland China, it would qualify for a minuscule town or a big rural village.In Taiwan, it’s a smallish city.
Four mega-cities in China
China has four mega-cities with over 20,000,000 citizens::Beijing (http://radiosinoland.com/2017/01/29/on-beijing-by-jeff-j-brown-a-resident-for-13-years-since-1990-china-rising-radio-sinoland-170129/), Shanghai (https://radiosinoland.com/search/?q=shanghai), Chongqing (https://radiosinoland.com/search/?q=chongqing) and Guangzhou (https://radiosinoland.com/search/?q=guangzhou). As you can see from the aforementioned links, I’ve written a lot about them. These are first-tier cities. My family lived in Beijing 1990-1997 and 2010-2016, so we know what it’s like. From 20M down to 10M is generally considered second-tier cities. There are many of them. Shenzhen is one (https://radiosinoland.com/search/?q=shenzhen).
Reality stretching Shenzhen, but like this all over China
We lived there 2016-2019. When we got there it had 12-14 million inhabitants. It was growing so fast no one knew for sure. Since then, it officially hit 17,000,000 a couple of years ago. That means it added 3-5 million people in just a few years and we didn’t even notice. No squalor, no slums, no shanty towns, no beggars, no homeless people, no crime; spotless, beautiful and people-centered infrastructure everywhere you turn. Just millions and millions of subsidized, low-income housing for the masses out to the horizons, financed by people-owned banks, on people-owed ground and protected by people-owned insurance companies.
Infrastructure for the people – only communist-socialist countries can ramp up cities on this scale
To take in the influx, Shenzhen has doubled its people-owned metro system, making it the global #5 network (~600km), since only 2004 and that will double by 2035. Metro lines are being added in every direction and all Chinese metros are cheap as hell. Not to mention 16,000 people-owned electric buses serving 1,000 bus lines and 75,000 super-cheap electric taxis. Fifty percent of Shenzhen is gardens, parks and grass. Infrastructure of the people, by the people and for the people.
Chinese are brainwashed about Western superiority
For Americans, Canadians, Europeans and Aussies/Kiwis, Shenzhen and all other Chinese cities are metropolitan paradises they cannot even begin to fathom. The Chinese are so spoiled and they don’t even know it, the vast majority believing the Judeo-West is superior. It’s a reflexive mantra: The West Is the Best. 1980s-1990s Judeo-Western soft power and propaganda still stick to the Chinese soul, like dog shit on shoes. They are sadly deluded, yet very fortunate, with quality of life and prosperity getting better and better. It could be worse. Westerners are sadly deluded, yet very unfortunate, with quality of life and prosperity getting worse and worse.
Cities fusing into other cities to make super-cities
Soon, Shenzhen will be a super-city, joining the Big Four. Only communism-socialism can succeed in building up cities this fast and without all the many socioeconomic problems that capitalist countries experience on a daily basis. Soon, it will fuse with Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao to create a super-city of over 100 million souls, with all the infrastructure seamlessly harmonized. I write about this process in The China Trilogy, cited below.
2nd-tier Changsha is bigger than New York City, London, Berlin or Paris
Changsha (https://radiosinoland.com/search/?q=changsha), where Amir lives and works, has, they think about 12,000,000 and growing. A few years ago, it was a third-tier city with fewer than 10M. No socioeconomic problems as it develops, with wall-to-wall subsidized, low-income housing.
Here are the city tiers
Third-tier cities are 10M down to 5M. Hengyang has 6.6 million people. It is a lovely place, like Shenzhen and Changsha, with the same dynamics, just on a smaller scale.
Fourth-tier cities are 5M-2.5M. We will visit some of these.
Fifth-tier cities are 2.5m to 1M, which we will visit as well.
Sixth-tier cities are below one million occupants and you will get to experience them too.
Ferris wheels fit the bill for lower tier cities
As a pole of attraction, entertainment and family fun, 3rd, 4th and 5th-tier cities are installing big Ferris wheels. Hengyang even has two of them! These cities will build tourist streets around them, with theaters, cinemas, shops, restaurants, arcade games and the like. In the torrid summer heat, they are a big attraction in the evening. In the cold of winter, where temperatures can drop to minus ten here, in search of the sun, they will be packed on the weekends.
Ferris wheels are low-cost and owned by the people
Chinese Ferris wheels are people-owned, but there is a charge to ride them, usually about 50-25 yuan (€7.00-3.00), as you go down the city tiers, to cover the cost of employees, insurance, maintenance and electricity. There is no way private for profit money would install these Ferris wheels.It takes public for people investment in for a higher quality of life under communism-socialism for these kinds of projects to be realized.
Compared to London
The London Eye in England costs 39 pounds per person, or €47, which is 390 yuan! And the great advantage of not being in Britain is I cannot be one of the 55,000 annual knifing victims. That’s 151 knifings PER DAY. The Chinese people NOT! They have no concept of how violent, brutal and cruel the Judeo-West really is. Nor do Westerners, since they are so inured. Traveling in China puts comparisons in proper perspective.
China continues to urbanize
Why are Chinese cities growing so fast? China is rapidly urbanizing. In 1949, 90% of the people were rurals. They didn’t hit 50% urban until 2011. We were here when it happened and it was a big deal in the media. Last year it hit 67% and Baba Beijing’s planning goal is to peak out at 80%. By comparison, the US hit 50% urban around 1915 and today is 80%.
ENJOY THE RIDE! ENJOY CHINA!
Photos by Amir
The Hengyang Ferris wheel by day. Lower left, you can a small amusement park, shops and eateries. In the steamy summer heat, they do booming business after the sun goes down and it cools off.
The pods are really high-tech, with A/C, heat and a selection of music inside. A few of them are decked out for lovers and newlyweds, with a white table cloth, lots of kitschy flowers, ornaments and loves songs playing inside. It’s hard to take a photo in a Chinese city without seeing subsidized, low-income housing in the background.
A very attractive Ferris wheel indeed! They are a great way to get a bird’s eye view of the surroundings, as you will see below.
Near the top, Amir is pondering China’s amazing communist-socialist development, progress and growing prosperity for the 99%.
I’m doing the same as Amir. Hengyang is a great third-tier city to visit and learn about the Chinese people’s unforgettable, revolutionary past, ongoing.
The next four photos show the jaw-dropping infrastructure and development that we are seeing everywhere we turn. Housing for the masses, clean roads, bridges, green parks and low-cost public transportation are a given in China. Bus rides in smaller cities cost 1-2 yuan, or €0.12 – €0.24. Rural villages also have public transportation, with shuttle buses feeding into county, prefectural and provincial capitals, at least one in the morning and then evening, to take care of business, administration, go to the doctor/hospital, etc. In the West, rurals are on their own.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Hengyang’s SECOND Ferris wheel at night. The façade lights change themes and colors throughout the evening. Amusement park rides keep the kiddos happy and give Mom and Dad a breather. The rides are geared more for younger families.
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Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
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The China Trilogy has everything you want to know about the Chinese people that you will NEVER learn inside the Judeo-West’s Big Lie Propaganda Machine:
https://radiosinoland.com/2018/06/30/praise-for-the-china-trilogy-the-votes-are-in-it-r-o-c-k-s-what-are-you-waiting-for/
AND
https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00TX0TDDI/allbooks
Connect with China Writer Amir Khan! He is your Dr. Shakespeare, who lives and works in Sinoland…
Posts
https://substack.com/@hmachine1949
Professor’s page
https://fsc.hunnu.edu.cn/info/1103/10302.htm
Books
https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Hindsight-Counterfactual-Shakespearean-Philosophy/dp/1474426042/
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003464334/death-hamlet-amir-khan
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-59894-9
https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319598932
Interviews
www.radiosinoland.com/search/?q=amir
Social media
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