Imagine 220 million people on the move using the roads, rails and sky—all at the same time.
That’s what my family experienced in 2008 when we visited China during one of its national holidays, the Lunar New Year on February 7, the Year of the Rat. For 2015, the Year of the Goat lands on February 19.
In 2008, my sister and her youngest daughter went with us—and both are evangelical Christians who did not agree with China’s one-child policy. I heard this more than once but after they arrived in China and experienced that migration, they both stopped preaching about why the one-child policy was wrong.
At times, It was so crowded it felt as if we were swimming upriver through an ocean of people.
That’s when I decided that my next trip to China will not be during any of China’s national holidays—especially the Lunar New Year.
For readers who haven’t been to China, this may be your only chance to experience a taste of what it is like to live in a country with more than 1.3 billion people. By the way, 220 million people is equal to 70% of the population of the United States.
It’s possible that a passenger will have to stand for a trip of 16 to 48 hours to reach their destination.
For comparison, during the 35-day Thanksgiving to New Year holiday season in the United States, USA Today reports that Auto-club giant AAA projects that nearly 99 million Americans will travel more than 50 miles by car or air—less than half the number of people in China who travel during the Lunar New Year that’s celebrated for about 15 days.
2103 Lunar New Year in China
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
Honorable Mentions in General Fiction
2012 San Francisco Book Festival
2012 New York Book Festival
2012 London Book Festival
2009 Los Angeles Book Festival
2009 Hollywood Book Festival
Finalist in Fiction & Literature – Historical Fiction
The National “Best Books 2010” Awards
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[…] China’s Annual Lunar New Year Migration […]
For someone that hates crowds, that’s the ultimate nightmare. Glad I missed it.
And I’m glad I’ll never experience it again.