The Hongqiao train station, west of Shanghai, remains shrouded in a cold blanket of fog. Red lanterns hang at the entrance. Outside, a silence is constantly interrupted by the hustle and bustle of taxis and suitcases. Smokers take their last puffs while gazing at a city that sleeps in the distance, recharging its batteries to keep up with the pace of its more than 27 million inhabitants. The sobriety of the outdoors in this January dawn is shaken as soon as you step inside a station where the platforms vibrate with the echo of the hurried steps of the human tide that is leading the world's largest annual migration.
It is 2:45 in the morning, and thousands of people crowd the vast railway complex. There are hardly any free seats on any of the trains departing from Shanghai in the next five days to other points in China. There are not even tickets available to stand in the spaces that connect the carriages, where the bathrooms and the hot water dispenser that passengers use to prepare their instant noodle soups are usually located.
This is the usual scene during each chunyun, as the period of massive travel for the Chinese New Year is known, which starts on January 29 with the snake as the zodiac animal. Authorities have said they expect a record of over 9 billion domestic trips. Most of this movement is done by road. But hundreds of millions of Chinese workers also board trains to reach their hometowns through the 100,000 kilometers of railway infrastructure in the Asian giant.
Our overnight journey on a conventional train takes seven and a half hours from Shanghai to the port city of Yantai, in Shandong province, across from North Korea. A one-way ticket costs around 40 euros. The fastest option, about an hour and a half, was to take a plane, but at this time, prices are skyrocketed: the Shanghai-Yantai air connection was priced at over 500 euros.
In carriage 5, most passengers quickly fall into a deep sleep. Officials from the Ministry of Public Security, who usually are part of the interior landscape on these trips, walk several times along the central aisle separating the rows of seats with a tiny camera attached to their chest, ensuring to capture every face.
Interior of the train covering the Shanghai-Yantai route, full of travelers for the New Year celebration.L. DE LA CAL
As dawn breaks and the train heads north, the contrast is stark between the human warmth inside the carriage and the frost outside. The endless rice fields and towns with skyscrapers cast shadows of the extraordinary changes and contrasts of a country that has quickly transitioned from extreme poverty to being an economic and technological superpower. A glance out the window reveals a landscape full of pharaonic constructions in the middle of nowhere, a fever to mass-build aligned blocks of buildings, between 20 and 50 floors, that stand out for their uniformity, neutral colors, and are based on practicality rather than aesthetics: the design is optimized to accommodate as many people as possible.
From early morning - the sun begins to rise at 6:00 a.m. - many passengers on the train prepare their noodles with boiling water for breakfast. In the carriage, which had been peacefully silent during a few hours of sleep, there is now an ambient sound of noisy mouths slurping their soups. Among the travelers are parents with young children who are going to spend the New Year holidays in their grandparents' homeland. There are also young couples and restless, very humble migrant workers for whom these dates are more special because it is the only time of the year they can return home and reunite with their families.
The scene upon arriving in Yantai around mid-morning is similar to that of Shanghai: rivers of people with suitcases everywhere. The station is colorful with posters depicting snakes, an animal that in Western Christian culture has been associated with temptation, but that in China has varied symbolism ranging from procreation, spirituality, to cunning. In Chinese astrology, the 12 zodiac signs possess different qualities, and the animals representing them are paired with one of the five elements (gold, wood, water, fire, and earth) to promote the balance of the natural world.
This 2025 marks the celebration of the year of the wood snake, which conflicts, according to the Chinese zodiac, with the sign of the pig. Therefore, in such a superstitious culture, many born under that sign believe that a dark period of turmoil is approaching. It is common that, just before the New Year, many pigs visit temples to seek protection and fill their homes with talismans to attract good luck.
Among the most extreme believers are those who go as far away from China as possible during these holidays because they say that to rid themselves of bad omens, they must stay away from their birthplace.
Before stepping foot in a distant country, some of these travelers have probably read the warning issued by China's main anti-espionage agency, the Ministry of State Security: "When traveling abroad, you must protect state secrets and refrain from engaging in or assisting in any behavior that may harm national interests." In other words, the superstitious Chinese travelers escaping the curse of the year of the snake cannot enjoy their vacations in peace because they must be on alert in case any foreign spy tries to recruit them.