Chaguan | Of sickness and homesickness

摘要

NO CROWD IN China is truly anonymous. Subtle badges of class, income and even region mark out individuals in the densest throngs, such as those seen at lunar new year, when hundreds of millions of migrant labourers, white-collar workers and students cram into trains, buses, aeroplanes or cars to visit faraway relatives. China is a country in constant, restless motion. But even in a normal year, it is also a place of hard-to-shed social distinctions. This is not a normal year. In line with China's ambition of keeping covid-19 infections as close to zero as possible, national health authorities have asked the public to avoid non-essential travel to see in the year of the ox. That is a reasonable request. But the burden falls heavily on those 300m migrant workers, for whom the holiday is often a rare chance to see children and aged parents.