We call it "Spring Festival Transport", aka 春(Spring)运(Transport) in Chinese.

I don't know whether there's something similar in the western world, but in China, spring festival means time for home. Millions of people will travel across the big country for home. No eariler, no later, just within about one week, only once each year!

As you may imagine, the traffic system will hit a very high load. Tickets are sold out in a very short time every day. Just to get a piece of train ticket, thousands of people have to wait in a queue 24 hours beforehand, in spite of cold winter rains! And for the unchecked scalpers over the country, some people may have to pay 2,3 times higher than the original price for his ticket. I am sure many of the ifgogo.com writers have the experience of buying higher tickets in China.

If you are traveling by train, then there's something even worse! Getting a ticket is not the final rescue! Mostly, you may have to stay in a very crowded carriage, jostle each other tightly. Keep in a same pose for hours and no toilet available! That's like true nightmares, especially for female passengers. And that's why I suggest my friend to travel on air, no matter how rich the air ticket is.

The worst thing is, after a tired-through struggling and  finally arrive at home, you only got two or three days to stay. After then, you have to struggle back to work/school again!

Anyway, to stay with family during spring festival is such a important custom for us. No one dares to disobey it or even to discuss about an alternative way. Though we all know it's a very low-efficiency family gathering, we all have to go with it. Personally, I will leave for Guangzhou on Jan 25 to meet my father and get back to Beijing later in Feb, that would be a very tiring trip

(Guangzhou station, photo from Chinanews)

(Photo by namelz52 – you may take a look at this blog, though all in Chinese, you may also read the photos)