Special train takes migrant workers home

Train attendants dressed in ethnic costumes interact with migrant workers. Photo by Huang Zaiyun

More than 600 migrant workers arrived home on Jan. 13, 2020, after a heart-warming train ride from south China's Guangdong province to southwest China’s Yunnan province, where their hometowns are.

Chen Fuchang from Kunming is a retired soldier. Over the past years, he has arranged for about 2,000 people from Yunnan to secure work in Guangdong. According to him, he has been entrusted by the Yunnan provincial employment bureau to deliver train tickets to nearly 200 impoverished migrant workers working in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan.

To make the train trip more pleasant, the train attendants put on a song and dance performance for the passengers. To help migrant workers go back for the family reunion during the Spring Festival, the relevant departments from Yunnan and Guangdong provinces worked together to launch the special train for migrant workers.

About 33.2 percent of migrant workers from Yunnan work in Guangdong. The 600 people on the special train come from 13 prefectures and cities, 44 counties, 132 townships and 270 villages in Yunnan. They work for about 140 companies in 9 cities in Guangdong.