Chinese saddle up for Year of the Horse

Going home is a deeply human urge. But for some 600 million Chinese, going home on this, the Chinese Lunar New Year's Eve, the main hurdle is getting a ticket.

As the Year of the Snake yields to the Year of the Horse tonight, China is mobilized for the Spring Festival holiday, the week-long kickoff to the new year. With millions of Chinese coming or going over a 40-day period, it is perhaps the largest annual migration on the planet.

The lunar new year is the only time many Chinese families can gather. Like Christmas for an American, it won't do to arrive even a day late. That's why on Beijing streets this time of year, people greet each other not with "Nie hao" (hello) or the traditional "Have you eaten?" - but with a question, "Have you got your ticket?"

Therein lies the annual rub. Travel in this country of 1.3 billion is mainly by bus or rail. There are always more travelers than seats, even with hundreds of extra holiday trains circumnavigating China this season. Ticket-buying is a serious challenge, a yearly ritual, requiring all one's persistence and wit.

"There's no meaning if you come home after the day," says Ling Yu, an office manager who spent last week on the phone procuring two seats for Shandong. "You have to use your mind to get a ticket."

Rail and bus tickets sell four days before departure. But many Chinese cultivate relations with railway staff for months - taking them to dinner and offering favors. Office managers and college deans meet rail officials for group allotments. Ordinary people stand in line overnight, and sometimes over two nights, at 24-hour ticket counters. Friends rotate with friends in line, while others employ local hires to stand in.

Scalpers networks, public bulletin-board notices, and semi-legitimate travel brokers that buy up tickets and provide cellphone numbers are hot in January.

Stations are a stampeding swirl of homemade knapsacks, holiday-red gift boxes, cartons of wrapped fruits, meats, and bread - and everywhere is the sound of the madly popular rolling suitcases.

Ju Yi Pin, overcoat neatly buttoned waits in a jammed Beijing train station. She came on a 10-hour ride from Shanxi and is headed north to Harbin, a 14 hour ride. But it took three days to scour Beijing before she found a ticket. Ms. Ju's plan is to surprise the family. When her mother called to say, "the daughters of the other families have all come back," it wasn't easy for her to stay quiet, she says. But a surprise is a surprise.

"The trip is very long, and each year I have to decide whether to do it," says Ju. "But I'm glad when I do."

One young man wearing white socks but sporting a new Western-style coat looks up from a newspaper to say he is going to Dalian from a business college. His parents are peasants, but they pushed him into higher education. "They love me. I couldn't afford going home last year," he says. "But this year I have to, I want to."

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