As September draws to close, China edges closer to its National Day holiday. From October 1st until October 5th, 6th or 7th, depending on ones working schedule, kids are off school and the vast majority of the population are on holiday. Cue absolute bedlam at airports and train stations as middle kingdom goes on the move.
The price of flight tickets increases dramatically during this period, sometimes by up to 2 or 3 times. Obviously, this depends on your destination, but its safe to say you will be paying more than you would do usually. When you also factor in that train tickets can sell out almost as soon as they become available you can understand how this can be a pretty miserable time to travel. However for many people in China, this holiday and the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) are the only long holidays (1 week plus) they may get over the course of a year. There are other national holidays in China, but they are 3 days long, effectively a long weekend. When you consider the huge distances and costs faced by many, 3 days isn’t really enough time
In recent years China used to have 3 long holidays, Labour Day, May 1st gave people another opportunity to return home or travel. However a few years ago this went from 1 week, to 3 days. The extra days weren’t discarded, they were moved to other important national holidays to make up a number of 3 day weekends, such as, Qingming (Tomb Sweeping) and Mid Autumn Festival.
This throws up an interesting issue that a lot of young people in China face: “To go home or not to go home, that is the question”
In Chinas major cities a huge amount of the work force is made up of non-locals, known in Chinese as 外地人 (wai4 di4 ren2), a polite way of saying non-local. For example, anyone that works in Beijing but isn’t from Beijing fits under this banner. This results in hundreds of millions of Chinese people being away from their families for the majority of the year.
During the Spring Festival especially, people face huge pressures from their parents and extended family to return to their hometown. Although there is still pressure to home during the National Day Holiday, this has dropped in recent years. Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable to not return to your hometown for either of these holidays, although now the pressure to return home during the National Day Holiday is subsiding, although not completely gone.
Effectively what has happened is the National Day Holiday has become the time to travel. Whereas the Spring Festival in late January / early February is when you are expected to return home. A trend that is bucked on a greater scale with each passing year.
People are faced with a difficult decision – go home, the preference of older family members or travel, the preference of the younger generation. This is not to say one decision is right or wrong, but this difference of opinion is a reflection of a greater social change that is sweeping across China. As Chinas economy has risen to all conquering highs over the last 30 years, society has not really kept pace with this rapid development. This is understandable, but what it does lead to it to a huge difference in priorities, values and motivations between the older and younger generations.
Chinas notoriously long working hours and low amounts of paid holiday lead to people using these national holidays as a chance to travel or return home. However as spending power increases in China more and more people are taking these opportunities to travel abroad. This is another example of widening gap between the old and new generation in terms of priorities and values.
The truth is we all know the value and benefits that travel can bring to ones personal life, but when this personal games comes and the emotional expense of ones family members this can be a little challenging.
When I came to China in 2011, the idea of doing anything other than spending the Spring Festival with family was just not an option. Like a forbidden fantasy, people wanted to do something a little different and a little daring, but knew it couldn’t be done. In the last 6 years, this situation has changed remarkably with more and more people opting to travel during the Spring Festival than ever before. There are a huge variety of reasons for this, but safe to say big societal changes are happening China.
