All aboard sister-city express

Editor's note: Amity between the people holds the key to sound state-to-state relations. China Daily will come out with a series of stories highlighting Chinese cities' special connections with sister cities, mutual understanding, trust and friendship between peoples of different countries and cultural backgrounds, and shining light on "city diplomacy".

A very special dish in a restaurant in Kunming has those who love good food licking their chops as they wait to be served. When the food arrives, the very sight of the crushed lemon grass that envelops minced pork, as well as the aroma that accompanies it, provides a foretaste of what's to come.

Everything has been grilled over charcoal and is served with a special sweet, spicy sauce all the way from Laos, about 500 kilometers away. The taste sensation begins with the delicate texture of the roasted pork, enhanced by the rich, savory sauce, followed by the citrus aroma of the lemon grass.

"Lemon grass is commonly grown in Kunming, but people here had never encountered this unique way of presenting it," said Fan Junfeng, founder of the restaurant, Sabaidee Lao Kitchen, in Kunming Old Street in the Yunnan capital.

This delicacy, the lemon grass chieftain skewers, was once a hidden recipe in the villages of Laos but has now become a part of Kunming restaurant fare.

However, there is a lot more to the relationship between the city and Laos than lemon grass skewers, thanks in part to the China-Laos Railway that opened three years ago.

Fan, 31, is one of 43 million passengers who have benefited from the high-speed link, allowing travel from Kunming to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, in 10 hours, and allowing him to explore local markets, night bazaars and, of course, the local restaurant fare.

For Teng Hailin, the general dealer of Beerlao in China, the railway has solved major issues with cross-border logistics. Before the railway opened, Beerlao's products being transported from Vientiane to the border needed at least four days to make the journey, she said.

"During the rainy season, the roads in mountainous Laos would be muddy, and beer bottles were often damaged. Sometimes. The trucks even overturned. In heavy rain, we generally lost 30 to 40 percent of the cargo.

"Now, with the railway, we can transport goods directly from Vientiane to Kunming and then distribute them to supermarkets in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou."

Just as those Lao lemon grass skewers have become de rigueur in Kunming, Lao coffee, hot pot and beer have also become a regular part of the city's dining scene. In fact, enjoying rice noodles in Kunming in the morning and sipping coffee in Vientiane in the afternoon has become a lifestyle for some thanks to the railway link, underlying the growing friendship between the two cities, which established a twin-cities relationship in 2011.

Despite the geographical proximity between the two cities, a mere 820 kilometers apart, the towering mountains and rugged terrain have long hindered communication between them. For thousands of years, these mountains only bore the footprints of wild elephants and the occasional caravan of horses carrying goods.

Friendly exchanges

Five years after the sister-cities ties were established, work on building the China-Laos Railway began, and since it opened in 2021, its trains — with a green livery that symbolizes nature and hope — have flourished, promoting friendly exchanges and deepening the long-standing friendship between Laos and Yunnan. When a railway station was being built in 2019 near the home of Khamphilom Vannaphone, a young woman in Vientiane, one of eight stations on the railway line, her parents' thoughts turned to China when they pondered the career prospects of her and her siblings. Eventually, she enrolled to study tourism management at Kunming University and her siblings enrolled to study international economics and trade at Yunnan Normal University in Kunming.

Now, Vannaphone, 33, is not only living in Kunming but has become a veritable cultural ambassador, promoting ties between the two cities and between Laos and China.

When the China-Laos Railway officially opened on Dec 3, 2021, Vannaphone filmed a video of the trip and posted it on the internet, sparking a wave of interest in traveling to China by train.

"The video got 1.08 million views, and don't forget that the population of Laos is less than 8 million," Vannaphone said. "I got a lot of comments from Laos and Thailand."

Vannaphone has become a full-fledged travel vlogger and has used her video skills to tell the world about the beauty of Dianchi Lake in Kunming, Xishan Mountain and Yunnan food.