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Tens of millions of Chinese wrestle with Lunar New Year dilemma: stay or go?
- Many people are facing the prospect of sending a second year away from their families over the holiday because of Covid-19
- The Spring Festival normally sees the world’s largest annual movement of people, but many are now weighing the risk of travelling during the pandemic
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Jason Zhao has been wrestling with a dilemma millions of other Chinese workers who moved to the big cities have been agonising over: whether to travel home for the upcoming Lunar New Year.
Zhao, who works for a state-owned enterprise in Beijing, knows very well that he is expected to follow the company’s “guidelines” about the holiday in addition to what the government has officially mandated, and he would need specific approval from a senior supervisor to take leave or he can expect a smaller year-end bonus.
Ultimately he decided that he would stay in the capital city again – the second year in a row that he will not be able to make the day-long journey to his parents’ home in the remote northwestern province of Xinjiang and make do with a virtual celebration instead.
The annual Spring Festival, typically brings the biggest annual human migration on earth, known as the chunyun.
Ordinarily, tens of millions of people – from all walks of life – leave the big cities where they work and return to their hometowns and villages.
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