bowen photo: 一月 2009

Take me home before spring, railway line!

Queueing up for ticket, if people don't want to pay much times higher price in the black market. Get up early enough, set out with the coat and shoes warm enough, and stand several hours maybe indoor or -7 centigrade outdoor, even so, some hot railway lines' tickets are still very hard to get.

Chinese lunar new year is coming soon. Migrant workers have to arrive at home before the new year's eve which is most important minute in the whole exhausted working year. They are wild goose race in the human being, following the temperature of the economy but weather, traveling by the railway line but wings. Although the tickets of the train in China were never enough for the massive moving people wave, on the other hand, railway transportation's monopolize bring the ticket's system's corruption and illegal ticket's market going common, no one give up before a utmost try in the battle with tickets. This is named ChunYun, the proper noun means the transportation high tide before and after the spring festival. The official predict number of passenger flow during the 2009's ChunYun is 2.32 billion people-times throughout the nation, in which, 1.9 hundred million people-times move by train. This number based on the railway traffic capacity, but the reality requirement.

Going back home have been rooted deeply in Chinese nation's soul as long as our culture's history. we must stay with our parents and other family members in our hometown, both in the ending of every year and the ending of our life. Hometown, parents, brothers and sisters, ancestors' grave and ourself, we are living in one completely hard spirit bastion. So you might understand a little bit why our nation can't accept any sort of splittism and why our nation can be so old and huge in the same part via a glance of fanatical custom of going back home before the lunar new year.

春运＝一票难求

春节临近，大城市的人潮开始涌向车站机场，他们要赶在除夕前出现在千里之外的家人面前。春节前将这庞大数量的人潮送回家之后再把他们接回原地，是为春运。火车做为快速而廉价的交通工具，正是劳苦民众出行的首选，然而目前，无论火车还是乘坐火车的人，都显得如此不堪重负。

除夕夜的合家团聚习俗生根在我们的头脑里的时间可能与我们文化的历史一样悠久。我国土广阔，经济发达的工商业城市少而集中于东部，为了追求更好的生活，人们不得不迁徙到异地谋生。但是更好的生活不应该是属于个人的。对于我们的内心而言，如果家人不能享受自己的创造，乡邻也看不到自己的体面，那颗在外漂泊的心又如何得以安慰，再多的财富也是冰冷的。春节回家，这种顽固的信念驱动离家在外的人们在寒冬时节，不会在乎一边发抖一边跳脚地站在零下五度的风里熬过寒夜，只要在黎明到来时买到回家的车票。

一票难求，也仅发生在一年的某些时刻。而工作岗位、户口、房子这些东西，始终都是困难的追求。与之相较，车票又算得了什么呢？只要你豁得出去自己的身体，装备好御寒衣被，来得足够早，那么即便你看起来狼狈，即便你兜里除了购票款外分文没有，即便你是学历很低待遇很差，即便你没有户口也没有房子，你也可以排在第一，可以在差十分9点钟开始售票得第一时刻买到自己的车票然后挥舞着和百元钞票同一颜色的粉红车票，微笑着挤出人群大摇大摆地离开。站在广场上被冻得跳脚的人们交流购票心得，聊起电视里面的欧洲国家那宽敞舒适的火车，聊起如果没有金融危机那么自己的年终奖是如何丰厚也就可以乘坐得起飞机，聊起因为排队买票猝死的老人，聊起售票员如何私扣车票被人拍下视频放在网上如何让人解气云云，聊以解闷。这闷，是郁闷，也是忧伤，可能还是愤恨，因为事情都是关联的，人的情感更加让这联系变得不需要什么理由。

我们的国情还有我们的制度，究竟哪一样该对我们的处境负上较多责任？票务的腐败，运输的垄断，这是制度缺陷使然，然而巨大的劳动力大潮流淌在贫穷的农村与发达的城市中间，这又来自于我们社会现实需要。我们的国家举办了成功的奥运会，将三个人完好无损地送上太空又接了回来，成功地应对了自然灾难和社会动荡，但显然满足人们生存的基本需要，是一件更加困难的事情。地震和校舍质量，疾病和新闻封锁，现实和制度，我们这个国家又有哪一件事超脱于这对的纠缠在一起的双重困境之外呢？每当人们希望制度上发生一些改变的时候，责任便转移到了现实。而现实的改变，毕竟还需要很长很长的时间。