Most of China is on the move during the Spring Festival
By admin on 2014-12-29

Spring Festival is traditionally celebrated by returning to the family home, but some individuals, for a variety of reasons, celebrate the holiday differently, Lin Shujuan, Guo Shuhan and Zhang Zixuan find out more.

Li Cuijuan works as a housemaid for an 80-year-old widow in Shanghai, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. She has stayed at her employer's home for Spring Festival since she started this job 5 years ago.

"I choose to stay," says the 40-year-old housemaid.

The widow's sons work in other cities and Li has been working with her since her husband died in 2005.

Every Spring Festival her employer and children invite Li's husband for dinner. Over the past two years, her husband has stayed over the weekend.

Li says her pay has doubled since she started the job and she has saved enough money to build a new two-story house for her family in Henan province.

"I really enjoy the job, even though it means that I can't spend much time with my own son, not even during the Spring Festival," Li says.

"But I don't have regrets. I am grateful that each year my employer invites my son over to stay for a few weeks during his summer vacation.

"Not every child in my hometown has the chance to visit a big city like Shanghai at his age. I hope such trips will inspire him to study hard so that in the future he can also land a decent job and have a good life in a big city."

It was in 2005 that Li left her hometown in Henan to go to Shanghai and become a housemaid, leaving her then 5-year-old son at his grandparents.

As a farmer, with her husband, she could earn about 10,000 yuan ($1,460) a year, if the crops were good. In Shanghai, the couple can earn four times as much every year. She wants her son to live in a spacious new house and receive a good education. And that needs money.

Li comes from peasant stock and without much education she followed others by migrating to the big city.

She was warned that employers could be very picky and might treat her as a second-class citizen.

"We work for a living with our hands. What is wrong with this universal rule, if you are honest, hardworking and responsible?"

Li believes she was lucky to get her job at the widow's home.

"She reminds me of my own parents," Li says.

Zhang Renjie stopped attending family Spring Festival gatherings five years ago.

Since 2005, the founder of the charity website Owe China (www.owecn.com ) has joined the needy during the holiday period.

First off, he bought food and drink for old beggars and celebrated the arrival of Chinese New Year with them in the tunnels of Beijing's Wudaokou subway station, for two years running.

For the Spring Festival of 2007, he stayed with a farmer's family in a remote Henan province village. The family lost their 7-year-old daughter to congenital heart disease two days before the festival because they couldn't afford the operation for her.

The Spring Festival of 2008 saw Zhang shuttling to-and-fro in a poor county of Anhui province, joining local children whose parents had migrated to the cities.

Last year he spent the festival with beggars in quake-stricken Beichuan, Sichuan province.

Not only has the 26 year old devoted himself to those in need during the Spring Festival holiday but he has also posted their stories online, with photos, to raise funds for some 16,800 people.

For the upcoming Spring Festival, Zhang plans to visit Lixin, a county in Anhui province, which is where a quarter of the province's AIDS patients call home.

Zhang says he is grateful to his parents and elder brother, without whose support he couldn't have celebrated Spring Festival in his own way.

He plans to spend his Spring Festival doing charity work for another 5 years.

Wang Tianxiang, a graduate student from the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China, used to spend every Spring Festival in his hometown of Langfang, Hebei province, with his family.

Since 2007, however, after taking a vow of responsibility to look after a deceased classmate's parents, he has been seeing them for Spring Festival instead.

His classmate, surnamed Shen, died in an accident, in May 2007. Wang and a few classmates went to Shen's hometown of Shanghai for the funeral and his heart ached when he saw Shen's parents, who are close to 60, in despair at the loss of their only daughter.

"I felt their pain," says the 20-year-old. "What if the tragedy happened to me, not her?"

Wang offered his condolences, collected donations and hosted Shen's memorial service.

Then, he decided to make Shen's parents his own.

One day after class, Wang went to the hotel where Shen's parents were staying, in Beijing. He knelt in front of them, kowtowed, and said: "From now on, I am your son."

Now, Wang calls Shen's parents "mom and dad", the same way he addresses his parents.

He writes letters or calls them every week.

For the Spring Festival of 2008, instead of going home to Langfang, Wang went to Shanghai, to spend time with his adopted parents. He helped with housework and shopping, and was officially introduced to all of the family's relatives.

Last year, Wang invited his Shanghai parents to his hometown, celebrating New Year with both of his families.

This year, Wang planned to go to Shanghai again for the Spring Festival, but his grandfather recently passed away and he will return to Langfang to stay with his grandmother.

"My Shanghai parents fully understand the situation. They've sent their greetings to my family, and will be waiting for me next Spring Festival," Wang says.