Travel China and Beyond

Chinese New Year (The Year of the Pig) and Associated Travel Madness is Coming…

Many of you who are by now familiar with life in China (if you read my blog often I hope you have built quite a bit of knowledge about the place) or live in China, know how crazy things get around the Chinese New Year…. This is the time of the year when most everybody goes traveling — huge number of Chinese (and foreign residents alike) are on the move — visiting family, going site seeing. The travel period this time of the year is so important and impactful that there is even a term for it — “ChunYun”

Based on Chinese Government statistics about 150 million Chinese are traveling by rail alone. Then you could probably factor another 100 million that will travel by airplane, so you get the picture — how massive the scale of people movement in this period (this year from February 2nd till March 14th) is.

The image (from China Daily) gives you the idea — see how many ticket sales agents are on this row of ticket counters…. And this is the temporary / expansion wing of the ticket sales area of the Beijing Rail station…. You can make your own conclusions….Well, if you are planning to travel — be prepared and have lots of patience…If you want to learn about the Chinese New Year festival and how it is celebrated, check this book out Chinese New Year Celebrations It is very interesting. Enjoy!