Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in 2020, the word "Spring Festival" has slowly faded out of the public's vision. What is more and more forgotten than the word "Spring Festival" is the "motorcycle army" that once represented the return of migrant workers during the Spring Festival.
The decline of the motorcycle return army is not only a change in the means and modes of returning from motorcycles to cars and high-speed railways, but also a microcosm of China's rapid economic development.
From the late 1990s to 2018, the vast army of motorcycles returning home has been a unique "landscape" on the 321 National Highway in Guangdong.
National Highway 321 from Guangzhou to Chengdu, through four provinces and 34 cities, Guangxi and Yunnan Guichuan in the Pearl River Delta migrant workers, more or less and 321 National Highway have their own life stories.
There are two important towns on National Highway 321, which have the highest appearance rate among many news reports, one is Fengkai County in the western border of Guangdong, and the other is Wuzhou City, the eastern gateway of Guangxi. Fengkai is the last stop from Guangdong, and Wuzhou is the crossroads of the first "diversion" of the motorcycle return army.
From Wuzhou City, the motorcycle army began to divide into two roads, Guigang, Laibin, Hechi and other places all the way to the west, and Guizhou Sichuan and other places all the way to the north.
From a certain point of view, Wuzhou City has witnessed the rise, development, prosperity and decline of the motorcycle army. According to the data, in the 10 days of the Spring Festival in 2013, about 160,000 "motorcycle troops" returned home through the Wuzhou East Exit Path, and in 2016, on the first day of the Spring Festival, the daily traffic of motorcycles reached 30,000, and the peak of motorcycle return to their hometowns during the entire Spring Festival reached 250,000.
This number began to decline sharply after 2018, with the number of motorcycles returning home through Wuzhou falling to 50,000 in 2019, about 30,000 in 2020, and about 5,000 in 2021.
There are many reasons for the decline in the motorcycle return army, but the fundamental one is the increase in per capita income. On the one hand, after the increase in income, many migrant worker brothers have changed their means of transportation from motorcycles to cars; on the other hand, the rapid development of high-speed railways in recent years, the high-speed rail coverage area is wider, improving the efficiency of the "Spring Festival", many people choose to use shorter and more comfortable high-speed rail to return home.
For example, in 2012, a migrant worker from Tongren, Guizhou, worked as a construction worker in Zhaoqing with a monthly salary of 1600-1700 yuan. He said that from Guangdong back to his hometown, the round-trip fee for his daughter-in-law and his daughter-in-law would cost 2,000 yuan, but the round-trip fare by motorcycle would be more than 600 yuan.
In the past nine years, the wages of migrant workers in Guangzhou have increased significantly, and the data shows that the average wage in Zhaoqing area reached 5400 yuan in 2019. Therefore, from the perspective of economy and time cost, Tongren migrant workers can go home by high-speed rail from Guangzhou to Guiyang, and then from Guiyang to Tongren. The one-way fee for each person is less than 500 yuan, and the time is about 7 hours.
The difference between income and transportation costs is getting smaller and smaller, and the time is getting shorter and shorter, which invisibly makes many people choose to power high-speed rail or train back home.
Times change, history lives on. The mighty army of motorcycles returning home has become a footnote to vivid memories of an era. At the same time, the motorcycle return army has also become an unforgettable scene in China's "Spring Festival History" in its unique way.
Compared with cars, motorcycles and Chinese have a longer "emotional line" and a more plump "emotional connotation". Motorcycles are the most convenient and cost-effective means of transportation, and they are also the spiritual totem of wealth and happiness for many families.
In the past two decades, the motorcycle return army has symbolized the beginning of the "Spring Festival" and the approaching of the Spring Festival, and it is not so much a "traffic phenomenon" as it is a "pilgrimage journey" of ordinary Chinese people to the annual Spring Festival.
The motorcycle return army is a simple Chinese a vivid expression of the Spring Festival and reunion, and on the 321 National Highway has also formed a special cultural phenomenon related to the return of motorcycles - there will be traffic police services (such as changing driver's licenses on the spot), there will be stops and so on. Of course, there are also touching stories that happen at the service station.
In 3 days, the 2022 Spring Festival is coming. However, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, the term "Spring Festival" has become no longer hot, and even "local New Year" has become the choice of many people. The motorcycle return army will most likely disappear in the "Spring Festival" in 2022. Of course, there will still be sporadic motorcycles returning home on National Highway 321, but this may only represent a way of travel for a few people, rather than a mark of the times.
History is like this, rolling forward, looking back, so close, and so far.
May the COVID-19 epidemic end soon!
Note: Images are from the Web