Spring Festival Travel: Once More into the Breech
Spring Festival remains the most widely celebrated holiday in China and, statistically speaking, the world. Marking the Lunar New Year, an estimated 2.3 billion trips will transpire over a 40-day period ending on March 2. Easily the largest human migration in the history of the world, people return home en masse to see family and friends. The monumental number of travelers also reflects one the most glaring socioeconomic disparities in China: the floating population.
China’s fiscal boom, often dubiously labeled a “miracle,” remains concentrated in special economic zones along the coast that draws hundreds of millions of people from the impecunious interior of the country. With no job prospects at home, menial workers float into cities and manufacturing sectors looking to support themselves and their extended families. For most, the only time to return home occurs during the Spring Festival – a small respite from an arduous existence.
The sudden abandonment of work sites by migrant workers across the country thus stages the insanity of the Spring Festival transportation rush. On January 20 alone, 52.48 million Chinese took bus trips throughout the country. To make matters worse, southern and central China is currently experiencing the worst snowstorms in over fifty years. In Guangzhou alone, over 200,000 travelers, mostly factory workers, are stranded in a train station waiting to return to their homes.
Despite the stress of holiday travel, passengers at the Beijing West Railway Station appeared more cheerful than anxious. Unaffected by the crippling weather systems to the south, people are scrambling onto trains and making their way home at a steady pace. Even though many of the migrant workers have much to complain about concerning low wages and rising living costs, the prospect of being reunited with their families takes the edge of their struggle.