The journey home begins for millions

Li Jibing

The office worker

Work assignments often mean that 26-year-old Li Jibing works during China's main holidays.

However, as compensation, the marketing officer at the Education Affairs Division of the China Educational Service Center in Beijing is allowed to take days off in lieu.

But, unlike many colleagues who take time off in the week following the holidays, Li chooses to save them up and extends his Spring Festival celebrations.

The national Spring Festival holiday lasts seven days. That affords plenty of time for people whose hometowns are within relatively easy reach of Beijing, but for Li, who usually has to spend four or five days on the round trip by rail between the capital and his hometown, it's far from long enough.

His hometown is Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, but only two trains a day travel there from Beijing. One takes around 35 hours and the other 40.

"People joke that the chances of getting tickets for either of the two trains are equal to the odds of winning the lottery," he said.

Because of the high demand, the railway authorities arrange extra trains to relieve the ticket shortage. "These temporary trains have to make way for regular scheduled trains. I once took an 'extra' train back and it took about 70 hours. I left Beijing two days before New Year's Eve, but didn't arrive until the second day of the Lunar New Year," he said.

"I really need to buy a lottery ticket to celebrate my good luck, because I was fortunate enough to get a ticket for the hard-sleeper."

But 40 hours is still a long journey. He said he plans to take a host of gadgets with full batteries on the journey to kill time.

"I only started working two years ago and my current salary is about 4,000 yuan a month. Even if I'm thrifty, I can still only save a few hundred yuan per month after paying for rent, food and transport. Although the journey only takes four hours by air, 2,500 yuan for a one-way ticket is too much of a luxury for me. Even the 575 yuan sleeper ticket is a little expensive," he said.

Li goes home once a year and generally stays about two weeks. He considers the days at home with his parents the happiest time of the year.

"Every year I look forward to the arrival of Spring Festival because I can go home and see my parents. But traveling is really a big headache. The ticket back home is in my hand now, but getting a ticket back to the capital will be another severe battle," he said.

"There are too few trains to Xinjiang and I hope the railway authorities will construct more lines or arrange extra trains to provide us with more choices to reunite with family members."