First Mid-Autumn holiday helps fulfill wishes for family reunions

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-14 21:30

BEIJING - Millions of Chinese have used this year's mid-Autumn Festival, which fell on Sunday, to get together with family and loved ones.

This year the Chinese government made the festival a three-day national holiday for the first time.

Railways and buses from Chengdu, capital in southwest China's Sichuan Province, carried 180,000 people to quake-battered cities in the province on the first day of the holiday on Saturday, according to the transport authority.

"The holiday gave us a break from work to go back home to see my parents in Shifang City, after it was hit by the earthquake in May," said a man surnamed Li, while waiting in a crowded bus terminal in Chengdu.

Radio broadcast at the terminal reported travel was difficult, because of repairs on the road or damage from the earthquake. Home-going passengers, many holding packages of mooncakes, stood waiting.

Li said the passengers shared a common understanding that the festival's tradition of family values made the trip home more meaningful, and people with painful memories of the disasters cherished such chance.

Elsewhere in the country, people preferred to share the holiday feeling at home or on short family trips to tourist spots, instead of going far for travel, according to travel agencies.

Leading Chinese travel services like China Travel Service and CCT Travel reported slack booking for Mid-Autumn travels.

A staffer at the CCT Travel's office in scenic Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southwest China said that travel for the week-long National Day holiday in October was booked up. However, the business in the Mid-Autumn holiday was sluggish.

Liao Wei, manager of the Chongqing Office of China Travel Service, said that the company had planned in vain to open some new routes featuring the Mid-Autumn activities.

"We thought of something like a full-moon observing tour of scenic spots, but the market reaction to such ideas was bad," he said.

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