The upcoming Spring Festival traditionally means a happy get-together with family members for Chinese people. But for a newly-married couple like Sun Qijie and Wu Yonghua, it means 4,000 kilometers of travel and shuttling between three cities in seven days.
In the community where I live, there was a humble cigarette stand. Its shabby cover could barely ward off wind or rain, but the cigarettes were the best in the neighborhood, with many varieties on offer at reasonable prices.
Migrant workers, employees working outside their hometowns and students are the main body of passengers during Spring Festival. The homecoming of students starts about one week earlier than the other groups.
Fan Deliang, 25, a television editor, did not queue up at the railway station for hours. He bought a ticket through one of his college classmates, whose company booked tickets in advance. One month before Spring Festival, he already kept an eye on the ticket information.
Last week 22-year-old Jiao Yutao's face was a picture of disappointment as he walked out of the noisy and crowded tickets hall in Beijing Railway Station. After queuing for nearly four hours, he only managed to buy a standing-room ticket. This means he will stand for 12 hours on a train as he travels to his hometown of Jilin, Northeast China's Jilin Province, to spend Spring Festival.
The 40-day period starting from February 3 and ending on March 14 this year is called Spring Festival travel season, or chunyun. Huge numbers of passengers, including migrant workers, college students and those working outside their hometown, journey home to reunite with their families to celebrate Spring Festival, the most important festival in China.
The Chinese can sometimes be a weird bunch. In summer, the men love pulling their T-shirts up to expose their mighty bellies and in winter, they enjoy stripping down to their swim trunks and jumping into frozen lakes. Women take the icy plunge too.
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