There is an old Chinese proverb that it’s better to travel 10,000 miles than read 10,000 books – perhaps not on the trains like this though!
中國古語有云：讀萬卷書不如行萬里路。不過可能不是在這樣一列火車上行萬里路。
Dubbed “Lv Pi Che” or “green-skinned” train for the colour of their exterior paint, these crowded, noisy antiques were steam-driven, rarely topped 40 km per hour and could take days to reach their destination.
These trains were still very crowded, filled with business people, migrant workers and students travelling to the big cities – all with hope in their eyes, and the confident expectation of a bright future.
This is China Railway High-speed, known as CRH or HéxiéHào, which literally means harmony.
這就是中國的高速列車，眾所周知的“和諧號”。
In less than three hours, you can complete a journey that would have taken a full day on a green-skinned train's yesteryear.
二十年前乘坐“綠皮車”需要耗時一天的旅程，如今僅需要不到三個小時。
From 1864, when a British merchant built the first railway in China a 500-meter-long demonstration project in Beijing - to the present day, we can see that the growth of the country has been mirrored in the development of its railways: from poverty to abundance, slow to fast, weak to strong.
