The crush of the festival rush home
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I’d crossed the ticket check — despite all my efforts not to.
I was swept past the Shanghai train station’s boarding gate by the pure forward momentum of passengers boarding two other late trains than mine.
“Don’t push!” and “Don’t worry!” became the surging crowd’s competing chants.
My book was wrenched from my fist and trampled on.
I was also gripping the strap of my backpack — which contained my computer and work notebooks — as it was pulled away, clamped between people moving in different directions. I could feel the threads popping.
Some people were trying to jump over the ticket check barriers. A worker picked up a movable post and placed it across the doors to block them.
We’d stood in lines for hours.
Now, we were suddenly heaving forward.
Most of us just wanted to go home.
But a blizzard and the warm-up to the planet’s greatest annual migration of humans — the Spring Festival travel rush, or chunyun, when people return to their hometowns for family reunions — had conspired against us.
The day before, I’d kissed my ticket. (The trip had already hit many roadblocks.)
But even golden tickets get canceled in extreme weather.
So, lines swelled, people rebooked and the next day was even more frenzied.
I showed up about four hours before my train was supposed to depart, given the previous day’s lines. It left roughly three hours late.
I’ve often traveled China by train over the years and have found the system to operate like clockwork.
This was simply a case of bad weather at a bad time.
China Railway Corp’s website has increased capacity to sell up to 15 million tickets a day.
Authorities forecast nearly 400 million train trips during the 40 days surrounding the holiday. Shanghai is the No 1 departure point, Chinese online travel agency Tuniu reports.
Lines meandered across the station when I was there.
They often stretched to the building’s opposite wall, where they had to bend like number 7s and letter Ls to continue.
Many trains were running late after the previous day’s cancellations. Bodies stuffed every corner of the station — even packing the small spaces behind ATMs and vending machines.
I had to again plow through this throng when my boarding gate suddenly changed from No 5 to No 15.
“It’s like a war!” a woman shouted.
We finally boarded our train.
Some guy starting singing Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds (in English): “Every little thing is going to be all right.”
It really was.
I waited until I’d arrived in at my apartment’s door before I kissed this ticket.
Then, I stepped inside and kissed my kids.
I was home. Finally.
I try not to travel in China around the Golden Week holidays, such as Spring Festival.
But our family from the US has adapted the tradition of reunions. This year, we’ll join my parents in Sri Lanka.
The experience in Shanghai has given me a new appreciation for the train journeys home hundreds of millions of people will undertake during the chunyun.
I wish them happy travels. We all agree, family is worth any journey.