By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
The greatest annual movement of humans on earth occurs each year in China at Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). This year it begins February 5th and ends February 19th, with a final
lantern festival that extends four more days. This massive migration is a consequence not only of rapidly growing affluence, but also China’s several decade expansion of higher education.
Spring Festival [Chūnjié, 春节] is by far the most important holiday in China. Traditionally it has been a business-break, a start-over point and, similar to our Thanksgiving and Christmas, a family get-together time. It is a time to pay off all of your debts; this also means that everyone who owes you should pay you back. Traditional businesses may proportion salaries so that this month you could get paid double. You buy new clothes. Red packets of coins are dispersed to the children. Today people celebrate birthdays on their unique birth day; but earlier, everyone got a birthday older at this time.
By far the most important duty is to visit parents and grandparents, first on the father’s side and then on the mother’s side. In older times, few Chinese traveled away for an education. Marriage was usually with a partner from a nearby community. Before 1990, travel could require papers. And only the few scoring highest on the gao kao exam could travel off to the limited colleges. Minimum age to marry was higher. And factory workers and laborers mostly worked locally. China’s population rode bicycles and had not yet become motorized. Simply, visiting relatives was a nearby affair. Public transport was crowded but adequate for this local travel.
Since the late 1990s, China’s massive expansion of universities allowed far more students to attend the best universities their scores will allow, often many provinces away. There the college boy meets the girl of his dreams. And girls may meet their “sunshine boy.” Marriage still usually awaits a completed degree and a secure job. But when it comes to Spring Festival, to visit parents and grandparents on both sides of the family may now require crisscrossing the country.
From 1990 through the early 2000s, many countryside laborers came to the developing regions of China, particularly the southern province of Guangdong, to work in factories. Many couples left their child with a grandparent while they seized this opportunity to make more money. These children are called “left behind children” [liú shǒu ér tóng, 留守儿童]. In China, a large number of children are raised by grandparents while the parents work elsewhere to make a better life. For many, Spring Festival is the one time in the year when the young parents can return home and spend time with their child and relatives. There will be the joy of returning, and the heartbreak of leaving again.
This vastly increased migration during Spring Festival results in chūn yùn [春运] or “spring increased traffic.”
Every bus and every train is put into service. Tickets for the high speed train can be bought 30 days ahead; regular train tickets, only 10 days beforehand. There is no ticket scalping because the ticket must match the passenger’s government identification card. There will also be additional train tickets sold for standing-room only. Busses will be packed. Airline seats sell out long ahead of time. An estimated 2.8 billion trips were made by public transport during this holiday last year.
China now has more car owners than any other country, adding 9 billion more trips during this holiday. And recently, each year has seen an additional 100 million more trips made than in the prior year.
But China’s rural areas are rapidly depopulating as people move into towns and cities. Modern China is shifting to service industries and management, moving sweatshops to other countries with lower wages. And university growth has reached a plateau. But the intermarriage of university students from separate regions of China has been the major driver behind this massive migration, and that will continue.
In the largest cities, citizens are stacked in high rise apartments and business buildings. This is a holiday time when everyone may come to ground floor. And in cities such as Hong Kong, that leaves no space to move!
But there will be smiles on nearly all faces. And there will always be the New Year’s greeting of “Happy New Year!” in Chinese: Xīn nián kuài lè! [新年快乐!]
John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities in 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.