China youth spend Spring Festival away from ‘nosy’ relatives, take part-time jobs for extra cash
Nagging family members, burden of cooking for festive feasts see growing number of people deciding to stay in big cities where they work
The Chinese New Year is traditionally a time for family reunions, but this year a growing number of young Chinese people chose to avoid going home.
This year’s Spring Festival holiday took place between February 15 and 23, which is the longest break in recent years.
The tradition of family reunion during the holiday also leads to the annual chunyun, or Spring Festival travel rush, which is known as the world’s largest human migration.
This year’s chunyun lasts 40 days from February 2 to March 13, and is reportedly expected to generate a record 9.5 billion Inter-Regional passenger trips.
However, instead of following the tradition of returning home to spend the Chinese New Year with their families, many migrant workers chose to stay put.
On mainland social media, the hashtag “spending the Chinese New Year at my rental flat” became trendy this year.
Some did so to avoid expensive and hard to get transport tickets.
