The journey home begins for millions

The executive

Dong Yanyun, vice-president of marketing at a French Internet company, plans to take a flight home on Spring Festival Eve. She works in Beijing, but her parents live in Ma'anshan in East China's Anhui province.

"I didn't go home for two consecutive years and I'm afraid my parents will scold me to death if I don't return this year," she said, adding that she will give her parents 50,000 yuan ($8,000) in a red envelope to make them happy, because she does not see them often.

Dong traveled to Hong Kong during Spring Festival last year and the Philippines in 2011, rather than sticking to the holiday tradition of a family reunion. Because she wasn't going home, Dong's parents visited her grandparents in Anqing, Anhui province.

"I think there are many other ways to celebrate Spring Festival. It's really unnecessary for such a huge proportion of the population to take the trouble of going home during this one holiday," she said.

"First of all, it's a waste of resources for the entire nation to migrate at the same time and it puts a lot of pressure on the transport network. Second, for many people, Spring Festival means visiting lots of relatives who will ask the same old questions such as 'when are you getting married' and whether you have any plans for a baby. People of my age are really fed up with this sort of conversation," said the 31-year-old executive.

The last time she went home, she was working in Shanghai. The trip was more convenient because Shanghai is much closer to Ma'anshan than Beijing. She spent more than two hours on a high-speed train from Shanghai to Nanjing, Jiangsu province and then had a 40-minute cab ride home.

She prefers going home on other holidays or during her paid leave. However, she only stays for a couple of days, mainly because her hometown - like many small and medium-sized Chinese cities - has little in the way of entertainment other than karaoke, mahjong and spa centers.

"My lifestyle and daily routines are usually disrupted when I return home for the Spring Festival week," she said. "I have nothing to do but eat like crazy and my parents treat me like a little girl. But when I'm here in Beijing, my schedule is always full. I can go to bars and nightclubs with my friends in the evening, and go skiing or climb mountains on the weekend."

She had considered taking her parents to Southeast Asia during this year's holiday, but found the cost of traveling was at least two or three times higher than usual, so the family has decided to make the trip at another time when prices are more reasonable.