SHANGHAI - A recent survey has found that nearly 60 percent of the younger generation failed to go home this year for a traditional family reunion to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.

According to a survey by Beijing-based recruitment website zhaopin.com, only 42 percent of more than 4,800 young interviewees chose to celebrate the festival with their parents.

The survey also found that 44 percent of the young people who did not go home did so because they were too busy with studies or work far from home.

"It takes me about 22 hours to go home to Hubei province by train, but we've only got a three-day holiday, so most of the students who come from faraway cities like me chose to stay at the university for the holiday," said Qin Xiaogang, 22, a senior student at Shandong-based China University of Petroleum who had not been back home for the Mid-Autumn Festival for eight years.

"I normally make phone calls to my parents on the night of the festival and try to make them understand me and feel that I miss them very much," said Qin.

Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the eighth month on the Chinese lunar calendar and on Sept 12 this year, is the traditional day for family reunions and eating moon cakes.

"Mid-Autumn Festival is the symbol of family reunion in China and there are lots of ways such as phone calls, text messages and e-mails to replace the reunion of family members while more young people study or work in cities far from their parents," said Hua Xiaoying, a professor from the research and development center of Chinese tradition and culture, East China Normal University.

Hua suggested that young people should think more about the feelings of their parents and spend as much time as they can to accompany their parents on the traditional reunion day.

According to the survey, 32 percent of professionals, the majority of them white-collar workers aged between 26 and 30, had not spent the Mid-Autumn Festival with their parents for the past five years.

"I started feeling lonely when I grew older and realized the importance of reunion and family, but I really don't have enough time, especially because I'm now working in Beijing," said Gong Yujie, a female white-collar worker from Hunan province. She could not remember the last Mid-Autumn Festival she spent with her parents.

The parents of young people who cannot come home also have mixed feelings.

"I totally understand and support my only son working and living independently in Shanghai after his graduation, but as parents, my husband and I still hope our son could come home for the Mid-Autumn Festival," said Wang Qi, a mother of a 24-year-old son who had not come back for the Mid-Autumn Festival for five years.