Location
Hengyang (衡阳), Hunan Province （湖南省） to Jinggangshan (井冈山)，Jiangxi Province （江西省）
Videos
#1
Transcript
A nostalgic trip back to when my family lived in China 1990-1997
This is a typical train station when we lived in China from 1990 to 1997. These are the local/regional trains, the green trains that have hard seats. They’re not nice and comfy seats. They’re hard seats. And we spent days of our lives traveling on these on these old, slow trains.
They’re slow because they stop at all the smaller cities and towns for the masses to get around
Our train is gonna take almost four hours, and it’s not going very far. You can see you’ve got some nice massage seats there and a little store. Amir’s thinking about our trip.
What progress. We even have air conditioning now!
So, this is what it used to be like and we even have air conditioning now. We didn’t have air conditioning back in the nineties. It’d be like 35 degrees, almost 100 degrees F in a room like this with all the people.
#2
Transcript
Hengyang Slow Train Station – using Confucism-Daoism-Buddhism to go with the flow and zen-out the hub-bub!
I wanted to show how loud it can get in China. I’ll just leave this on for about thirty seconds at the hard seat train station in Hengyang.
#3
Transcript
Inside a modern Chinese slow train – slow trains have gotten a face lift
So, this is actually a pretty modern slow train. I mean, it actually has padded seats. We used to travel in the nineties, they were just hard plastic, back and seat. We have air conditioning on this train. We used to not have air conditioning.
Not packed to the gills anymore
They would overbook the trains and the aisles would have hundreds of people standing in them, all up and down the train, because they had no place to sit, and there was luggage piled everywhere.
The Chinese have changed
Things have changed.
#4-Hengyang to Jinggangshan countryside is sublime and poetic.
Transcript
Hunan’s beautiful countryside
One nice thing about slow trains is that you can really, obviously, it’s not going that fast. But, you can really slow down and see the countryside. You can see just how nice it is and it’s not all wall to wall people. There’s a lot of forests typically the hills and the mountains.
Chinese rural villages are more prosperous than many places in the West
And then you’ve got the villages. Look at the size of those houses. Those are farmers.
Chinese farmers live in BIG houses
They’re richer than most westerners. Look at these houses. They’re doing alright.
#5
No transcript
Look at the prosperity of the rural citizens in China.
#6
Transcript
Getting into mountainous terrain
Amir: Do you want the window comrade?
Jeff: No. I’ve got it. We’re starting to get into some mountains.
Amir: Yeah.
Jeff: Starting to get into some mountains. Well, you know that the place we’re going has a national park that’s called Jinggangshan (shan means mountain).
#7
No transcript
Electric power lines and rivers crisscross the countryside
#8
Transcript
Chinese farmers own their own houses and pay no property taxes
Well, the train stopped at this village here, and it just paints a great picture of rural China. You’ve got some wonderful crops; this is probably rice. I’m guessing it’s probably rice.
Infrastructure in the boondocks out the yazoo
And you can see the power line up above me. You can see the nice four lane highway behind the village.
France’s villages are quaint and picturesque. So are China’s
You can just see how nice and organized these rural villages are.
Look at how well they are doing!
See how big the houses are. Like I say, most of these people are richer than many Westerners. The farmers here do very, very well.
Villages in the valleys and tree covered mountains
We are now in a very mountainous area, so there’s just little valleys where the farmers are living.
What a fortuitous photo stop. Taking videos and photos from moving trains is hard.
So, this is a nice place to stop and look at a Chinese rural village.
Photos by Amir
Hengyang Slow Train Station, these days with air conditioning. The 1990s with my wife and kids NOT! Back then, it was an exhausting ordeal, but we got there.
Above: the celebrated slow train name plates with the departure and arrival cities and their route numbers. It’s funny, because in Chinese, it says “fast speed”. These days, with 350kph high-speed trains, it’s a quaint anachronism. Back in the 90s when my family was living here, it was true! These name plates are so iconic that they sell them as refrigerator magnets, and slow trains are still a very nostalgic mode of transportation for 1.4 billion Chinese.
Leaving from Hengyang to Jinggangshan. Since Hengyang got a brand new high-speed train station, its slow train sister has not gotten a newer facelift.
Just in the last 20 years, the Chinese have built many hundreds of small-town train stations, or tore down and replaced older ones. This is Jinggangshan, our destination. Since it does not have high-speed train service, its old station got remodeled. Clean, safe, no pickpockets, no drugs, no violence. Sure can’t say that in France and US.
All aboard! There are lots of personnel on the quays and inside the trains keeping things tidy and safe.
Chinese run tight trains. Even after being cleared with your ID to get onto the quays, you have to show it again to get on the right car. Everybody stands in line now. The Chinese people have evolved tremendously since the 1990s. Back then, overbooked trains were stormed by all the passengers trying to get on. It was dog eat dog and you had to fight, elbow and push your way on board. Then you had to fight for your seat, even with a valid ticket. With kids it was always fun!
The Hunan countryside is sublime. Mountain backdrops, a riot of trees; quaint, prosperous rural villages and rice fields everywhere.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Aquaculture is huge in the Chinese rural areas. They grow carp, which is environmentally friendly, since it converts water grass and moss into fish muscle. No need to feed animal protein, like almost all other species.
When we lived in 1990s China, we needed a Jeep to get around, since most of the rural roads outside the cities weren’t paved. Not a problem these days. It’s amazing what a wise and caring government can do for its people by not maintaining a Worldwide Wehrmacht like the Judeo-West does, which is spelling its rapid downfall.
Look at the size of farmers’ home in China. Big and two-/three-story is standard. They are better off financially and for quality of life than many Westerners. Notice the electrical lines coming in to supply the houses.
Chinese farmers of course get to benefit from their cash crops, plus every family also has a nice plot of land to grow vegetables. Not to mention chickens and pigs, which you can see to the right, likely raised collectively. This collective rice field is terraced.up to the train track. Notice the raised four-lane highway to the back right. There are billions of people around the world who wish they had such a good life.
At your destination, there are usually taxis waiting for inbound travelers. If not there is also Didi Dache on your phone, which works in English for visitors. Bon voyage!
References
https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201902/14/WS5c64a418a3106c65c34e9317.html
https://www.globalpeople.com.cn/n4/2025/0609/c305974-21624587.html
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202503/12/WS67d0e286a310c240449da51b.html
Note
To enlarge photos, simply hit CTRL+ 1-3 times to blow them up, and CTRL- to bring the webpage back down to regular size.
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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
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