|
Ideally, Spring Festival should be about relaxing and reuniting with family, but more and more Chinese are finding the holiday stressful, burdensome and taxing both on one's energy and pocketbook. Given the tooth-and-nail struggle required to even get a ticket this time of year, many consider the trip to be a chore and a source of anxiety, according to a survey by Horizon Research Consultancy Group that polled 720 people working in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Xi'an. Apart from worries over transportation and the cost of gifts, some of those who have left to work elsewhere are unaccustomed to life in their hometowns, especially the ones who have abandoned their small towns and villages for big cities. Huang Xiaoyu, 30, of Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, has a hard time persuading her husband, who hails from the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, to return to her hometown each year. "But I understand his unease when he is forced into a lifestyle he isn't used to. In fact, after living in Guangzhou for 10 years, I also need some time to adapt to the rural life," Huang said. She has to stock up on her husband's favorite foods before the trip each year because the stores in her hometown do not sell them. Respondents to Horizon's survey scored their feelings. The higher the score, the more anxiety they have over the trip. The average score of the 720 respondents was 68.97. People going back to cities scored 67.95 on average, with those from small towns scoring on average 68.88 and those from villages, 70.21. | 
