Standing Room Only

A student, I taught last night, told me about her travel arrangements to get back to her hometown in Anhui Province for the Spring Festival, aka Chinese New Year.

She will be catching a train at 300 a.m. and arriving at the station closest to her hometown at 1000 a.m.  She will be taking one of the older and slower trains, and she won't have a seat.  Ouch!

The train she takes to get to her hometown doesn't originate from Wuxi.  At the originating point, all seats have been sold, and it seems that none too many of these ticket holders will be getting off at Wuxi.

She also told me a little bit about what it was like growing up in her hometown.  Her father sold vegetables in Beijing, and so she didn't get to see much of father growing up.  He would only return to her hometown on holidays.  And for a few years, her mother also was in Beijing helping him while she was going to school in a town 15 km from her hometown.

Her parents are now back in her hometown.  They live in a new house, but don't yet have a/c or hot water in her home -- she will have a cold Spring Festival.

I won't have such primitive conditions in my wife's hometown where we will go for the Spring Festival.  So, I shouldn't complain.