2013 Spring Festival Travel and Great Migration Underway

[Fu Lai]

I'll be on a train Tuesday, only a 4 hour ride so I probably won't be snoozing but I will be a part of the biggest migration on Earth.

 

 

Spring Festival travel is a must for most with the time and comfort far outweighed by the need to get home. For the vast majority, sleeping in tight, crammed spaces on overcrowded trains has become as synonymous with the holiday as firecrackers.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20130201/d4bed9d4d2201275d10f0e.jpg

Passengers sleep anywhere on a train heading from southern Guangzhou to northeastern Changchun around 3 am on Jan 20, 2013. [Photo by Bai Shi/CFP]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20130201/d4bed9d4d2201275d1070a.jpg

A man walks through a crowded train heading from southern Guangzhou to northeastern Changchun around 2 am on Jan 20, 2013. [Photo by Bai Shi/CFP]

The journey home begins for millions

The world's largest migration of humanity starts..

Every year, at this time, millions of Chinese embark on the world's biggest travel rush - the trek home.

With joy, or possibly frustration after toiling for the past year, a huge proportion of the population will set out on a journey of reunion for the country's most important holiday - Spring Festival.

Possibly as many as a billion people will shuttle between the cities where they live and work and their hometowns for the holiday.

To ensure the smooth running of the world's largest annual migration, extra travel services are being organized from Jan 26 until March 6. A record 3.41 billion trips are expected to be made.

In addition to the railway system, which will bear the brunt of the pressure, airlines, road and shipping networks have all geared up to meet the surge in passenger numbers.

The rail network is expected to handle 225 million trips, while long-distance buses will transport up to 3.1 billion passengers. The combined figure accounts for 99 percent of China's rail and bus capacity, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Some 35.5 million journeys will be made by air during the festival's peak, a rise of 4.9 percent from the same period last year.

Obviously, such a huge number of travelers will stretch the country's transport network to its limits and pose challenges for each part of the system.

While some will enjoy the luxury of air travel, for many millions more the journey means being stuck in overcrowded train carriages for long, boring journeys that will take many hours.

China Daily asked five people, representative of different groups in society, to share their stories of the journey home. ...

Read more: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/2013-02/01/content_16192330.htm

 

[dnoblett]

Yep, I saw that one in my FB Feed this morning. Nuts!

[Fu Lai]

Great link of pics and topics

[Zhou Zhou]

Lao po and I went to a showing of, "Last Train Home" at an independent library, last week. There was a lot of good discussion after....check it out. ZZ

[Mick]

As they say, "Been there, done that." During my years living in China, I usually tried with all my resolve to keep from traveling during the annual migration. Most times, I was able to avoid this and for that I am grateful. Even a short journey can be a veritable nightmare. Somewhere in the bowels of Candle is my write up of taking a bus from our campus to downtown, not a more than six miles, tops. Still, it was New Years Eve. In the write up, I discuss sitting next to a man with a live goose in a burlap bag. The goose, no doubt the guest of honor at the upcoming feast, was none too happy and took it out on my shins. He would peck me and each time he did, the old man apologized and slapped the goose in the head with a rolled up magazine, which did nothing to improve the goose's mood.

Edited February 2, 2013 by Mick (see edit history)

[Doug]

Bought a ticket to show up the 14th but not sure I will go. I have too much to do here.

 

Wife will go way South to be with family and she returns about an hour before I am scheduled to arrive.

[tsap seui]

Not sure I would be the right sorta feller to go over to Chinertucky at their New Years. We blew off a dump truck load of fireworks to celebrate our new house, and another 40 pounds outside a resturant we were going in to have a family feed for our engagement get together. I'm done, okay, alright, had enough, was exciting, bada bing bada bang boda boom boom. Fini

 

tsap seui

[ama537621]

I will be part of the migration, Leaving Buffalo Friday AM arrive HK 8:00pm 2-9, 2 nights in Shenhen to recover from Jet lag then on to Xingning, for 4 days. Then back to HK.

[DocMartin817]

We are here in Wuhan safely ahead of the great migration that started the day after our arrival. Everywhere we go we see people dragging wheeled suitcases and carrying bags on their way to family gatherings. We had our first one two nights ago at a local restaurant - lots of great food, white wine, and ganbeis!. Another family gathering in two more days and them some more visits to relatives is on tap. We are flying the family to Shanghai next week so Liwen's mother and father can visit old friends and we can go bird watching at the bay.

[dan1984]

Leaving home in about 10 minutes here to fly from Beijing to Chengdu, and then tomorrow morning on a 5-6 hour bus to the lady's home of XiChang. Should be great!

[Fu Lai]

Rode roundtrip on a train to Changsha yesterday, seat on the four hour ride there and standing on the way back. Everything completely packed and the biggest pieces of carry-on luggage/bags I have ever seen. Just the same old normal greatest migration of people on Earth and everyone is pretty accepting of it.

Edited February 6, 2013 by Fu Lai (see edit history)

[ama537621]

Shenzhen is a Ghost town, The middle of the major electronics selling section of town and we can walk without running into people, the only bad things are half of the stores Yuan wanted to visit are closed today, and no banks open to exchange good old ben Franklin to RMB. I wanted to exchange some money at the airport but as you can guess my wife said to expensive here . Good thing she kept her bank account in China.