China on Thursday bid adieu to the Lunar Year of Snake and welcomed the Year of Horse as most of its urban population moved to rural areas to celebrate the Spring Festival, also known as Chinese New Year, with their families.
Thursday is the last day of the Year of Snake and the Horse year enters from the crack of dawn tomorrow in the world's most populous nation which has declared holidays for a fortnight. "When we bid farewell to the Year of the Snake and usher in the Year of the Horse, a whole new start will be there for each and every of us. That is exactly what Spring Festival is about - to leave the bad behind, and embrace the good ahead", a state-run China Daily said.
"There is no better way to celebrate the warmth of home than the togetherness tonight with loved ones. There are no winners, no losers at the family dinner table. For those who gained, it is time of sharing. For those who suffered, it is time of healing", it said.
The Lunar New Year celebrated for centuries has become the most challenging for the governments as best of China's 1.36 billion people move out and return, making it the biggest annual migration of the world. During this time of this year China's main work force, the migrant workers who formed part of its global success as a manufacturing hub move to their villages in millions for the spring festival also known as Chinese new year and later move back to their work places.
The rush is expected to last up to February 24. Among the various means of public transportation, the railway sector, which carried out structural reform last year, faced a deluge of complaints over the difficulty of procuring a train ticket. This year the spring festival rush is estimated to be about 3.6 billion passenger journeys, an increase of 200 million from last year.
Hu Yadong, a vice general manager of the China Railway Corporation said that 258 million trips are estimated to be made by railways for the new year, an increase of 7.9 per cent from the last year. Politically this is also a significant time for China's leaders as they rush to spend time with military personnel in remote areas as well as with some of the poorest communities.
While President Xi Jinping visited soldiers guarding remote parts at the Mongolian border, Premier Li Keqiang visited poor communities. For both the leaders, this was the first year in their office after last year's once-in-a-decade leadership change.
"The Year of the Snake was a hopeful one. The economy defied hard-landing prophecies, outperformed anticipations, and remains in decent shape", the daily said referring to the 7.7 per cent GDP achieved for 2013 barely few notches more than the official target of 7.5 per cent.
Politically, Xi launched a massive anti-corruption drive to restore public confidence in the nearly six and half decade rule of the Communist Party of China.
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