Chunyun, the World's Biggest Journey Home — Epoche A2
Our factory's last working day is Friday. Then the machines stop for the Spring Festival — the only time of year when the whole factory closes for weeks — and three thousand people go home. 🏮 The workshop group chat is now sorted by one question: how are you getting home? The train people. Most of us. Tickets went on sale two weeks ago, and the popular routes sold out in minutes. My seat to Chengdu takes eleven hours; my cousin's standing ticket takes the same eleven hours, without the seat. The motorbike people. Workers from the nearer provinces ride home in groups, luggage tied on behind and rain covers over their knees. Petrol stations along their roads set up free tea stops for them every winter. The reverse people. A few families do it backwards: the parents travel from the village into the city, because seats into the city are cheap and empty when everyone else is riding out. This movement has its own name: chunyun , the Spring Festival travel season, about forty days around the new year. Billions of journeys — the largest regular movement of people in the world. It happens because, for a worker far from home, this is the one holiday long enough for the journey. Friday night, platform 3. My mother is already cooking. 🏮