China’s biggest festival has just ended. A staggering 501 million domestic trips were made as almost everyone returned home to spend the week-long Chinese New Year with their families. Everyone except the unlucky ones providing essential services and employed in the hospitality and the tourism sectors that is. Even a trucker couple from Hangzhou on the East Coast who transport goods for a living and have made their vehicle their home felt they had to celebrate New Year in the home they had left behind. Bagging a delivery order for a destination en route to their hometown, they set off on the 1,200-kilometre-long drive to Hebei in the north. The sight of their 10-year-old daughter waiting to welcome them made it worth it.

This year, many of those who would have normally travelled miles by bike found themselves in a position to travel in comfort. Recalling previous 30-hour bike journeys in the biting cold interspersed with rain, Huang, a stall owner, this year got into his car with a sense of pride. Bike journeys have been falling since 2014.

For the truck driver, Wang, it was like stepping into a different world this year. Used to a seven-hour journey home in a crowded train, his first act on entering the Chinese C918 jet was to send selfies of himself reclining in his seat to his awed parents in his village.

Not everyone went home though. Many decided to spend the holiday exploring their country. Some tourists were in for a novel experience: in two of Beijing’s ancient temples, robots greeted visitors, offered them drinks and desserts, and even played music and performed the Peking opera.

Recent years have seen a heightened curiosity towards cultural sites: ancient Buddhist caves, old temples and underground architectural marvels. Now, for those who can afford them, group tours helmed by scholars are available. A family from South China, keen to explore the Gobi Desert in the North West, found a tour led by a scholar from the Chinese Association of Dunhuang Studies. After a blog post describing an ancient dance form involving fish-shaped lanterns went viral, the local village administration set up workshops on the subject. All the slots got booked.

Two sides

China’s new visa-free policy for select countries (not India, of course) has achieved its aim of boosting travel to pre Covid levels as many Asian countries have reciprocated, hoping for a New Year rush, which would boost their economy as the Chinese are seen as ‘high-end’ tourists.

This year, a new destination has emerged: the Gulf. The United Arab Emirates saw a 60% spike in Chinese visitors and, in Saudi Arabia, the number of Chinese tourists jumped nine-fold. The UAE has introduced visa on arrival for Chinese visitors and had Chinese New Year linked events in some of their theme parks.

An indication of China’s clout abroad was the special train in Putin’s Russia decorated with Chinese New Year patterns. But perhaps the most significant marker of the world’s second superpower was UNESCO’s inclusion of the Chinese New Year in its prestigious list of Intangible Cultural Heritages this year.

But not all of this can erase the dark side of the festival: the arrears in wages owed to the poorest Chinese every new year. This year, there were 213 strikes across the country by workers demanding their arrears so that they could go home. While most were, as usual, construction workers — including those involved in building State-funded infrastructural projects — there were others too whose payments had been defaulted on by shoe manufacturers, courier companies and even a pig farm, among others. A few desperate workers threatened to jump off terraces, forcing the management to intervene. Not an auspicious start to the Year of The Snake.