What are everyone’s thoughts on the Spring Festival holiday?

Thread Content

Repost: During the Spring Festival holiday, I have thousands of friends on my social circle; I saw many people driving home to celebrate the festival, with some of them traveling all the way from Beijing to Mianyang in Sichuan. There are also many who complain about the difficulty in buying tickets. I drove back from Beijing to Jiangsu, stayed in Jinan for one night, and took the time to explore the City of Springs; it was quite nice. 7 {2 j8 y% r1 R C! s5 r: p$ W: K. e5 ^ Returning to my hometown in the countryside; the village I grew up in no longer exists – it was demolished one after another. Farmers move into apartment buildings; a three-bedroom unit of 120 square meters costs around 200,000 yuan, while a rural villa costs about 300,000 yuan. In both cases, the property does not come with ownership rights. Houses in the county town cost around 4,000 or so. % l; U( \, ~+ O! \* $ c4 A0 G" r/ R; H, Y5 l" k The most common thing heard when returning home is that it’s hard to find young men as partners – having a house in the county town and a car are the minimum requirements. There was a young man whose wedding date had already been set, and the bride was even pregnant. The problem was that the man’s family did not own a house in the county (although they had promised to buy one); they only had a house in the town. As a result, the bride’s mother firmly opposed the marriage and forced her daughter to have an abortion and end the engagement. There’s also a divorced man, born in 1984; he’s been divorced for seven or eight years now and can’t find a woman, which is causing worry and sadness for his whole family. & ]4 ^; o5 A6 c* I3 O) s , h+ u3 m& m% N. C5 x0 M% B- ? As for the economic downturn, it’s not yet evident in rural areas; it’s never been easy for farmers to make a living, and it doesn’t seem any harder now. Some low-end factories have been set up in the area as part of the industrial relocation process; workers earn two to three thousand per month, and since they don’t need to work outside, they consider this a satisfactory salary. Strong men usually go out to work. There is a sad thing. A 47-year-old man from the village who worked as a welder in Hangzhou died of a sudden heart attack in a taxi there. I had already planned to go home for the New Year holiday, but when I started feeling unwell I called my wife. At her insistence, I took time off to rest and went to a small hospital to get some medicine, but it didn’t help at all. During his time off for rest, he suffered another severe heart attack; he still called his wife, who told him to take a taxi to a large hospital right away, but he passed away while in the taxi. My wife and seven or eight relatives went to Hangzhou, and the company lost over a hundred thousand yuan as a result. Returning to handle the funeral, his sister wept bitterly, recounting the deceased’s hard life, which made everyone around her cry as well. When working away from home, be sure to take care of your health. A heart attack isn’t that serious in itself; just taking some quick-acting heart medicine and nitroglycerin should suffice to cover a few hours, after which one should go to the hospital right away. But the general public lacks medical knowledge, leading to tragedies. 9 Q& j4 K# I i1 B 1 @5 G4 L; Q7 Z4 D7 s The material standards of farmers are much better than they were when I was a child – there’s a huge difference. But rural society is collapsing; the number of divorces is soaring, and the traditional sense of integrity that had existed for generations is completely gone. People are becoming indifferent to one another, especially after demolitions, as neighborhood relations have become similar to those in cities. Farmers generally complain that village officials are terrible. Rural society is undergoing profound changes; it’s uncertain what the future will hold, but things don’t look good. Will Chinese farmers continue to work away from home generation after generation? That’s unlikely, right? Everyone is going home for the New Year; please share any observations or thoughts you have