The holidays are a time to be with family, and in China everything happens on a large scale. Chinese authorities expect upwards of 200 million (!!) people to take to the rails ahead of the Lunar New Year celebration with the majority being the country migrant workforce who use Golden Week as the only extended time to visit family. Freezing weather last year led to transportation gridlock in China and kept many migrant workers from traveling home to be with family so this year is expected to be extra busy.
The trains are so jammed with people that many migrant workers have taken to wearing adult diapers for the long journey because sanitation conditions on the train are so dire on the long journey.
I pulled some online photos that show the madness of train travel in China during the New Year. File this experience under the ‘I’d rather be absolutely anywhere except…’ category.
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