Workers invite relatives to enjoy Spring Festival

This was the first year that Wang Qing brought her parents to enjoy the Spring Festival holiday in Beijing, where she now lives and works.

Wang, from Shandong province, made the decision to have the family reunion in Beijing two months ago.

"I have an 18-month-old girl. It takes too much energy to carry the baby on a crowded train or fly back home," the 31-year-old said.

"I talked about the idea of spending the holiday in Beijing with my husband, and he agreed. He later helped my father buy a railway ticket to the capital a few days before the holiday," she added.

Wang was not alone.

Many Chinese, especially migrant workers in big cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, preferred to have the family reunion in the cities where they work rather than return home this year.

A survey by a Guangdong newspaper found that 30 percent of respondents said they would not go back home during the holiday.

About 8 percent of those who refused to return home decided to bring family members to the cities where they work to enjoy the holiday, because the cost of going back home was a big burden, according to the Yangcheng Evening News survey.

Duan Yan, an employee in a Beijing-based media company, agreed with the survey, saying that the cost of a flight back to her hometown in Hunan province was too high.

She would have cost her more than 1,000 yuan ($165) to fly to Changsha, but the cheapest fare from her home to Beijing before the holiday was only about 180 yuan.

"I invited my parents to my rented home in Beijing. Although it is a in rural area of the city, it is big enough," she said.

What's more, there is no heating in the south of China in winter, "which was another major reason that my parents didn't hesitate to come to the warm capital to have the family reunion," she added.

In the past it would be common to see migrant workers in Beijing go back to Chengdu, Sichuan province, but this year the route from Chengdu to the capital has become the hottest, according to people.com.cn.

The Chengdu railway authority said that the number of passengers from Chengdu to Beijing increased 60 percent over last year.

"Now, lots of young people settle down and have babies in big cities. They prefer to ask parents to go to see them instead of returning home," the website quoted Xu Jiye, a senior employee of Baidu, China's largest search engine, as saying.

Wang Qing echoed Xu, saying the key is getting together with family members, wherever they are.

Wang's husband also said he is considering taking his parents to Beijing next year, and the couple added they now look forward to enjoying that bigger family reunion.

But Shou Wenhui, an employee of a State-owned telecom company in Beijing, told China Daily that she still wanted to return to her hometown in Jiangxi province next year.

"I didn't get a ticket and my parents also wanted to see some relatives in Beijing, so the family reunion was planned here this year," said the 24-year-old.

"But in fact I wanted to go home to enjoy time with my high school classmates," she said. "We agreed to have a party every Chinese new year after I went to Beijing, but I missed this year."

Meanwhile, not all people from the country's southern areas can adapt to Beijing's dry climate, adding that her father has really wanted to return home.

"In addition, the atmosphere of the Lunar New Year is better in hometowns than big cities, because more relatives and closer friends are in the place where I grew up," she said.

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 02/06/2014 page3)