Chapter 115
The Streets on New Year's Eve Day
I am talking about the day before the Chinese New Year’s Day, not December 31st. Most of the small shops are closed by noon and the rest closed later in the afternoon. People would close early so they could travel to wherever they were going. These pictures were taken on January 22, 2012.
I could go out for a walk and there was hardly anyone on the sidewalks or driving on the streets. Usually I would have to move around people everywhere and be careful of the cars. It was like a ghost town. This day became my favorite day of the year. It was a good day for the foreigner.
Usually the streets are full of traffic and people everywhere on the sidewalks.
Even the road between the bus stops and the sidewalk is empty. Usually it is busy with bikes and people walking.
The road and the sidewalks are practically empty. You can see a long way. This only happens one day a year.
See how empty the bus is? You can see through it. Normally there is standing room only. There can be up to sixty people on a bus. They usually stand shoulder to shoulder.
This is the same intersection as the last picture.
This picture, along with the next three, are the same intersection that I used when I was writing about “Crossing the Street”. This is where the Xin Du Hui shopping mall is. If you go back and look through the pictures from that chapter, you will see that this intersection is usually full and there would be lots of cars and people in this mall area.
The red buses are for the store Carrefour. They will go out and pick people up to bring them to the store and then take them home again. The next three pictures are also part of the Xin Du Hui shopping mall. Notice there are hardly any people. People are leaving because of the Chinese New Year.
Xin Du Hui Shopping Center-so quiet
Chapter 116
Traveling In China During A Holiday
I did not take these pictures but I have traveled and know what it is like. I put these pictures here so someone that has not been to China can see what it is like to travel during a holiday. It is hard to imagine what it's like unless you have actually been there and experienced it but these pictures will give you some idea of what it is like. Seeing the pictures is one thing, actually being there is another. Over the years, some of my Chinese friends told me that they won’t travel during some holidays because of what you have to deal with.
It is said that the Chinese New Year is the biggest migration of people at one time on earth. It is the biggest festival in China. Hundreds of extra trains are added to the rail lines to help people travel. No matter which transportation you take-trains, planes, buses or cars-everything is busy. It is wall to wall people on the trains. Some people lie down, some sit, some stand. As long as they can get to where they need to go, that’s what is important. I am not talking about traveling just a few hours. I have had friends and students tell me about going twenty to forty hours on trains to get their destinations. I did that once when I went from Zhengzhou to Guilin with friends. It took twenty-one hours one way. I was lucky, I didn’t have to stand. On the way to Guilin, I got to stay in a car with soft-sleepers and on the return trip I stayed in a car with hard-sleepers.
If you think holidays in the US are busy, they are nothing compared to the Chinese holidays. During the Chinese New Year Festival, six million people travel each day by train. If you travel by train, plane or bus, you need to get your ticket as early as possible to make sure you can get one. More and more people have cars and even traveling that way has really gotten bad.
I happened to see an article about train stations in Beijing that the day before the New Year, New Year's Eve Day, 500,000 people went through the train stations in that one day. These pictures will give you an idea what it is like.
Can you imagine yourself standing here? And you thought waiting in line at the airport in the US was bad.
Now that we are on the train, let’s see what that is like.
Let’s see if we can get comfortable.
How nice, I found a footrest.
Headrests
After seeing those pictures, would you still travel or would you think twice about going somewhere on a holiday if you had to go through this?
After the traveling, this is next.
The Great Wall
An entrance to The Forbidden City in Beijing.
It looks like the main entrance to The Forbidden City. Where all of the people are standing would be Tiananmen Square. It holds one million people.
In the rest of the pictures, I do not know where these places are. I am just showing what it is like during the Chinese New Year and all of the people.
If someone pushed someone else, I wonder how many people would end up in the water?
I took this picture during the 2012 Chinese New Year in Luoyang. This is The Temple Fair at the Sui Tang Botanical Gardens. These gardens cover 350 acres. This is one of the entrances to the gardens. People as far as you can see.
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