For Xiaoli, it is the first time that she is not spending Chinese New Year with her parents in Henan Province.

For days, the 30-year-old media designer, who lives in Beijing, had struggled with whether she should dare to travel the 700 kilometers by train to her hometown of Kaifeng, despite the strict Corona requirements.

In China, each local authority sets its own rules.

Kaifeng recommends avoiding return trips for the Lunar New Year.

Anyone who comes anyway must register three days in advance, show two negative PCR tests and be at home under “health observation” for 14 days, the city said.

Friederike Böge

Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.

  • Follow I follow

Xiaoli has no idea what that means. Asking questions doesn't help either, because rules can change quickly in China and are therefore often deliberately formulated vaguely. The media designer learned from a friend that her mother had just been locked in her home in her hometown because she had returned from the city of Shenzhen, where there had been a number of omicron cases. Her front door was provided with a paper seal and an alarm transmitter so that she could not secretly leave the apartment. Then the direct express train connection from Beijing to Kaifeng was canceled, presumably to deter as many potential returnees as possible. Xiaoli chose to stay in Beijing. "I asked my friends who else was there to celebrate the New Year with me and was surprised how many there are."

February 1st marks the beginning of the year of the tiger in China.

New Year is the most important family celebration of the year.

This is usually the time when hundreds of millions of Chinese travel across the country to their families.

For many it is the only opportunity of the year to see their parents and often even their children when they are growing up with their grandparents.

This still applies to millions of so-called migrant workers whose children cannot go to school in cities like Beijing or Shanghai.

Earlier in January, China Railways forecast that 280 million passengers would travel by train during the Lunar New Year holiday.

That would be 29 percent more than last year.

The aviation authority expected about 35 million passengers.

Nobody can be sure

However, the return wave is likely to be a little smaller than expected because there have recently been smaller corona outbreaks in more and more cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. Returnees from parts of the city that are classified as risk areas, which happens with just a few corona cases, are often undesirable in other parts of the country. In a rural area in Shaanxi province, authorities announced a reward system for cadres who managed to stop returnees from going home by phone. In a rural area of ​​Henan Province, an official even threatened to arrest those returning from such areas. Even a negative test, a vaccination certificate and a two-week quarantine would not protect you, the man said in a video message. This refers to peoplewho "will not be deterred from returning home and maliciously return to their hometowns".

He was not only criticized for his choice of words by countless Internet users, but also by the Communist Party and its "People's Daily", which demanded more empathy. In another case, a woman from Zhejiang posted the response from the Zhejiang authorities: "You must be homesick. Come back whenever you want.”

In addition to many cities, employers and schools are also urging people to refrain from traveling home.

They often set rules that make such trips virtually impossible.

Some schools in Beijing stipulate that children can only return to school after the holidays if they have spent the past two weeks in Beijing.

Employees of state-owned companies often have no freedom of choice in this matter, but have to follow the instructions of the employer.

The biggest hurdle for most is uncertainty.

Nobody can be sure if they won't have to be quarantined after their return.