Three years is short, so short that it can't change people's tastes, but three years is also very long, so long that a person may experience certain life events, graduation, marriage, childbirth, and death of a loved one. For these people who have not returned home for three years, the way home is also the way to grow up, and it is precisely because of this long-term separation that they understand the meaning of family and affection better.
Text | Xu Qing
Edit the | Zhao Lei
Operational | chestnut
People who go back home
For many, this New Year is the first time in three years that they have gone home for the New Year. From the day of the childhood, or possibly earlier, the Spring Festival of 2023 begins.
The train station suddenly returned to what it was three years ago, and on January 19, the Beijing West Railway Station, people, boxes, and special products in their hands filled every corner, seats and aisles were occupied, and there were always hundreds of meters of long queues at the entrance and ticket gates. Chatting with local accents, the sound of suitcases sliding across the ground, and the sound of announcements at the station are mixed into a noise full of expectation. A boy with Daoxiang Village in his hand kept looking forward to see when he could enter the station. He pointed to his mobile phone and sent a WeChat voice, "I'm about to get on the bus", and his voice was full of excitement.
In December 2022, the "Class B and B pipe" measures landed, going home is no longer subject to isolation and lockdown, and the passenger flow of the Spring Festival has risen rapidly, according to Xu Chengguang, vice minister of transport, preliminary analysis and judgment, the total passenger flow during the Spring Festival in 2023 will be about 2.095 billion, an increase of 99.5% over the same period last year, and recovered to 70.3% of the same period in 2019.
The sudden return home caught some people off guard. Li Ke, who works in Beijing and lives in Inner Mongolia, almost didn't grab a ticket, Ctrip and 12306 opened, the tickets were all sold out, she bought a 20 yuan acceleration package, waited a full week, and waited for one. On January 19, she set off from home to the high-speed rail station, took a taxi for half an hour, and at the same time asked for a taxi on multiple platforms and added money to call a taxi, before waiting for one.
The driver told her that the drivers had returned to their hometown early for the New Year, and that he was a native of Beijing and only ran a car on this day. He has a familiar rarity, and after the New Year, Beijing has become an empty city again. Driving on the road, almost all the cars that can be seen go to the station, and on the curve of the entry station, the car is blocked for another half an hour. From home to the station, it was only half an hour's drive, and Li Ke reserved two hours to rush, but he almost missed the high-speed train.
Even so, she was happy, the high-speed train was speeding, mountains passed by the window, and when she was about to reach the station, she heard a boy call his father who came to pick up the station: "You wait a little longer, the car is delayed for a few minutes." And Li Ke's mother has also been wrapping dumplings at home and waiting for a long time, and at this time, 10 voices were sent asking where she was.
Everyone was looking forward to reunions, especially those who hadn't been home for three years, and some were ready to go home early. Zhong Lingling lives in a small island town in Zhejiang and is an employee of a state-owned enterprise. Over the past three years, she has planned to return home several times, but has not been able to make it.
On the morning of January 1, Zhong Lingling and her lover started the car, the trunk was full of New Year goods, there were two children in the back seat, and the family of four embarked on a long journey home. Zhong Lingling looked at the navigation and set off from Daishan County, Zhejiang Province, with the goal of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, a distance of 2,100 kilometers. The two took turns driving, crossing 5 provinces, adding fuel 7 times along the way, spending more than 2,000 yuan, and finally arrived in their hometown 24 hours later.
In mid-January, Zhao Xin, a real estate agent living in Nanjing, also drove back to his hometown in Handan, and his trunk was filled with milk, drinks, and Nanjing specialties, such as saltwater duck, to bring with him when he went to his relatives' house to pay New Year's greetings. He also brought with him a son who his father had never seen once, born the year before last, and he knew that this new life would be the biggest surprise for his father.
When the epidemic first broke out in early 2020, a small ticket changed Lin Jiamo's life for the next three years. At that time, she dragged a suitcase and flew from Shanghai to Taiwan, where she had lived for 10 years. She originally planned to stay for a while and go back, but within a few days of arriving in Taiwan, the news of the lockdown came out in Wuhan, and various places introduced prevention and control policies, and it took 7+7 days of quarantine to fly from Taiwan to the mainland.
After that, Taiwan also had an epidemic, a large number of flights were canceled, and tickets were bought and refunded, and returning to Shanghai became a luxury. Half a year later, she became pregnant unexpectedly, unable to travel for a long time, coupled with the prevention and control policies are always changing, from pregnancy to the birth of the child, and then to before the release in 2022, her parents failed to go to Taiwan, and she failed to return to her hometown, which is three years.
Before leaving, she went out for three consecutive days to buy souvenirs, such as pineapple crisp and nougat, packed a box, and specially prepared paper red envelopes and cash to send to the juniors in the family. This year, she no longer wants to send WeChat red envelopes.
And the family, who have been waiting for three years, have also done everything they can to prepare. Peng Di's family, who returned to Hubei for the Chinese New Year, arrived at the station late at night, and Peng Di's husband's two younger brothers drove a two-hour car to pick them up.
Knowing that his daughter was going home for the New Year, Zhong Lingling's father got busy and began to make sausages and bacon, clean the house, and spread new sheets and quilts. Dad doesn't just say, "I miss you," but he prepares a lot and says, "I'll get it for you, and you can use it when you come back."
Chen Xi, who just graduated in 2022, bought a ticket Chinese New Year's Eve the day before to go home, and then told her mother the good news. In the past two days, my mother prepared red socks, red autumn clothes and autumn pants, counting the days every day and waiting for her to come home. After growing up, Chen Xi often felt that the year was getting less and less, but this time she was looking forward to it, "like going back to her childhood."
▲ January 17, Chengdu North Railway Station. Photo / Visual China
Long journey home
Compared with the long distance crossed during the Spring Festival, this road home is longer in terms of time. Before the Spring Festival last year, Zhong Lingling asked the leader to approve the documents, and the leader suddenly persuaded her not to go home. At that time, the epidemic situation in various places was complicated, the return to the hometown policy was different, home isolation is good to say, some places are concentrated isolation, the holiday is a total of 6 days, if you are isolated after returning to your hometown, you can not celebrate the New Year, but also delay work, what is the point of taking a holiday?
After thinking about it, she eventually stayed on the island and did not return home for three years, all for the same reason. It wasn't until last September, when she gave birth to her second child and had six months of maternity leave, that the matter of returning home took a turn for the better. As a result, just after recuperating, in mid-December, her father also had a fever and called her to persuade her not to return. The child is only three months old, still a premature baby, poor resistance, he is afraid that it will not be good for the child.
Zhong Lingling returned the purchased ticket, after two days, she and her lover and children were yang, the symptoms were not serious, she had a fever in the afternoon, there was a little cough, her lover also coughed a little, the two children did not react at all, "We were yang like this." When everyone recovered, she moved her mind to go home again and bought a ticket to go back.
This time it still didn't happen. After the large-scale infection, everyone was spreading the "Fuyang" and "XBB strains", she asked on the Internet whether to go home, most people suggested not to return, after some hesitation, and canceled the ticket, the New Year goods sent back to Sichuan before, Dad received it and sent it back.
I thought that I would celebrate the New Year on the island again this year, but one day Zhong Lingling made a video with her father, and her father said that it didn't matter, "the eyes and face are lonely." At that moment, the longing for her family overcame the fear of uncertainty, Zhong Lingling opened up and made up her mind, "Anyway, I have already passed the yang, if I am unlucky, if I encounter a more powerful one, I will survive."
Not only Zhong Lingling's road home alone was so bumpy. Zhao Xin has not returned to his hometown in Handan, Hebei Province for three years. In the past three years, he celebrated the Chinese New Year twice in his lover's hometown of Anhui, and once in Nanjing. On the first day of the Chinese New Year in 2021, he once took his lover and drove out the car, preparing to return to Handan from Anhui, and the navigation prompt sounded, about 7 hours away. But just as he was about to get on the highway, he stopped. The lover sitting in the co-pilot was just 5 months pregnant, and there was another case in Shijiazhuang, which was very close to Handan, thinking about it, Zhao Xin turned around and returned to his lover's house.
That moment still makes him feel helpless and sad, "I don't want to toss my wife and children, in case of centralized isolation, it is difficult for pregnant women to do something." On the drive back, he sighed and felt like a deserter. Because he didn't go back for too long, people in his hometown were rumoring that Zhao Xin was tricked into a pyramid scheme.
When he got married in 2019, Zhao Xin took out all his savings, bought a house and a car, plus decoration, and owed a total of more than 400,000 yuan in loans, and had to repay more than 5,000 yuan every month. In recent years, because of the epidemic, Zhao Xin's real estate brokerage work is not easy to do, and there are fewer and fewer people viewing houses on the spot, and the customers who said they want to sign a contract the day before are locked at home the next day.
The income of real estate agents mainly comes from the commission of billing, and if you do not open a bill, you have no income, and you can only rely on overdraft credit cards, flowers, and borrowing to repay loans and live. Sometimes salaries are finally paid, various repayments turn around, and wages disappear like water poured on the ground. "My wife is responsible for the living expenses of the children every month, and I tear down the east wall to make up for the western wall every month."
This year, he hesitated to go home, "In the adult world, you actually don't want to celebrate the New Year, how can you not spend money on the New Year, can you not get it with 10,000 yuan?" "But I haven't been home for so long, and the thought of going home still prevails."
For almost every day of last year, Yang Junjun's heart had a voice saying, "I want to go home." "He applied for a working holiday visa in 2019 to do door and window installation work in Australia, as a Guangdong Hakka family, the family has a strong sense of clan, every day when he plays videos with his mother, his mother always asks him when he can go home for the New Year, every time he said, next year to see if there is a chance." But around the Spring Festival, when the prevention and control are at its strictest, it is more difficult to return to China overseas, and he is afraid that as soon as he goes back, there will be cases in his hometown, and "the whole family will become famous." Just dragged on for three years, the first year is just a pity, the second year is uncomfortable as soon as the New Year is over, and the third year is really unbearable.
In 2021, the Spring Festival sent a total of 870 million passengers by railways, highways, waterways and civil aviation, down 70.9% from the same period in 2019, and the activity of train ticketing apps fell by more than 50%, which means that hundreds of millions of people have not returned to their hometowns for the New Year. But this year, those who want to go home, nothing can stop them.
▲ Figure / Visual China
Three years away from home
I haven't been home for three years, and the first thing I miss home is always my stomach.
Lin Jiamo still remembers the Chinese New Year's Eve meal last Spring Festival: a huge table, only four or five people sit, or divided meal system, the distance between people is more than 1 meter, everyone eats their own, and occasionally says a few words. The meals on the table were not fishy, they were all vegetarian. Looking at the boiled green vegetables and tofu in front of him, Lin Jiamo had no appetite.
This is the third time that Lin Jiamo has celebrated the Chinese New Year in her husband's hometown of Taiwan. The husband's family believes in Buddhism, and it is understandable to eat vegetarian, because of the epidemic, everyone eats separately, also out of precautions, but Lin Jiamo eats more and more sad, the more she eats, the more tasteless she tastes, she can't help but think that if it is in her hometown of Yichun, Jiangxi, this meal "should be big fish and meat, spicy, heavy taste, a table may have a dozen or twenty dishes."
After eating, Lin Jiamo finally made a video call with his family thousands of kilometers away, and the family focused the camera on the dining table, here is the bacon from the hometown, there is the fish made by the mother, and the father said: "You hurry back, we have a lot of delicious food at home." The lively sound and the atmosphere of the New Year surrounded her at once. At the end of the video, Lin Jiamo opened her mobile phone to watch the live broadcast of the Spring Festival Gala, although she didn't watch much of the program, the red envelope icon flashing on the screen, and the laughter and applause that sounded after a while, were already the only taste of the year she could feel. That day, she fell asleep in the background of the countdown to the zero o'clock of the Spring Festival Gala.
In Shanghai, Lin Jiamo runs a clothing Taobao store and works as a self-media clothing blogger in her spare time. Rented in a house in Shanghai, with her various clothes, bags, and jewelry, she could not come back, so she could only ask friends to send what she could send back to Jiangxi, throw away what she couldn't send, and then quit the rent, "forced to experience a large-scale disconnection."
In the first three months of pregnancy, Lin Jiamo had a serious morning sickness reaction, and she didn't like what she loved to eat before, and when she smelled it, her stomach couldn't help but churn. The voice in her body told her that she wanted to eat the taste of her hometown. Yichun is very close to Hunan and has a similar food culture, where breakfast restaurants open early, and everyone walks in to a bowl of hot beef rice noodles. There is no such thing in Taiwan, and everyone eats burgers, omelettes, and sandwiches for breakfast. During that time, Lin Jiamo felt irritable, depressed, unable to work, and often quarreled with her lover. When she was really homesick, she went to Din Taifeng to buy xiaolongbao and brought it back to eat.
Three years is short, too short to change people's tastes, but three years is also very long, so long that a person may experience certain life events, graduation, marriage, childbirth, and the most regrettable thing is that these moments cannot be shared with family.
Chen Xi is a graduate student at a school in Beijing, graduated in July 2022, and stayed in Beijing to work, and her hometown is in Heilongjiang, and she has to be quarantined from Beijing back to Heilongjiang, and she also has to quarantine from Heilongjiang back to Beijing, but she also has to intern, write papers, and find a job, so she can't delay such a long time. Her father died many years ago, she didn't come home, and her mother was left alone for the New Year.
After going to her boyfriend's house for the New Year for the third time, Chen Xi discussed with her boyfriend and got married in 2022. That wedding can be described as "chaos". When preparing for the wedding, I decided to hold it in my boyfriend's hometown of Chengdu. The front foot just booked the hotel, and the back foot Chengdu held the Universiade, and the hotel was to be requisitioned. Because of the cases that have appeared in various places, travel, marriage, and honeymoon have also failed, and bridesmaids and best men are stuck at home and cannot get out.
On the wedding day, fewer than 40 relatives and friends attended, most of them relatives on the husband's side. Chen Xi's side only his mother, uncle and an aunt attended, and her grandmother, who was in her nineties, originally wanted to come over, but everyone was afraid that she would be infected and did not let her come together. That day, my aunt took a lot of videos with her mobile phone to broadcast the marriage scene to my grandmother. Grandma sent a series of voices, constantly shouting Chen Xi's nickname "Tingting". Chen Xi felt sad, she really wanted her grandmother to witness her happiness.
On the day Lin Jiamo gave birth, because of Taiwan's prevention and control policies, only one person was allowed to enter the delivery room, Lin Jiamo's mother-in-law was afraid of infection and did not come, and Lin Jiamo's parents could not come to Taiwan. In the delivery room, two new parents look at each other. The feeling that day, in addition to pain, there was also fear, and her husband was more afraid than Lin Jiamo. She had a cesarean section, and the doctor said on the side, "The child's head has come out, dad take a look", Lin Jiamo saw with afterlight, her husband was squatting next to him, his head buried in the sheets, and he didn't dare to raise his head at all. Lin Jiamo wanted to laugh and cry, if her mother was here, would the situation be better?
In reality, the only companionship comes from the husband. At one point, her husband drove her and her children to the door of their favorite restaurant, packed food and brought it back to the car, where adults ate in silence and children slept in the back seat of the car. After the rainy season in Taipei, it rained almost every day, humid and muggy, and her husband would drive four or five hours from Taipei to Hualien to bask in the sun. But in those moments, she couldn't help but make an assumption about what she would be doing if she was in her hometown of Yichun, where she had many relatives, and if she was in Shanghai, where there were many friends.
When Lin Jiamo needed her family the most, her family could not accompany her, and Yang Junjun was the other way around. In 2021, Yang Junjun's uncle had cancer, and his mother had a good relationship with his uncle, and his mother was taking care of him in the last few months. In the old house in my hometown, my mother lived on the second floor and my uncle lived on the third floor. Yang Junjun videotaped with his mother every day, watching his mother go from anxiety to despair until his uncle died.
Yang Junjun once wanted to go home, but was persuaded by his family to go back. Later, when she videographed with her mother, her mother kept talking about her guilt, and she felt that she did not find out about her uncle's condition in time. After my uncle passed away, for most of the year, my mother couldn't lift her spirits and was sick all the time. Once, my mother said, "Don't dare to go to the third floor, every time I go to the third floor, I think of him." Yang Junjun was very distressed, "When my mother needs me the most, I can't be by her side."
▲ Figure / Visual China
The way home, the way up
Sleeping at home, Zhao Xin felt an unprecedented peace of mind. When living in Nanjing, the bed is soft and the pillow is the most comfortable, but he always stays up until one or two o'clock in the morning before going to bed. Lying on the somewhat hard bed board in the countryside, he could fall asleep at nine o'clock. After turning off the lights, the night was as dark as ink, and no sound could be heard, only the occasional distant whistle could be heard.
Hometown and New Year's is like a mandatory lounge, no matter how busy and urgent things are, you must stop and return to the place of departure, a unique place of peace of mind, and a new rest. During this period, Zhao Xin slept the best sleep in the past few years, and the anxiety in his heart was relieved, and he was no longer in a hurry to do things, thinking in his heart, if he can't finish today, he will do it tomorrow, and if he can't finish tomorrow, he will do it the day after tomorrow.
Most importantly, he finally met his father. It's been almost two years since the last time I saw my father in reality, and I can only see the face in the video, and I can't see the whole body, Zhao Xin suddenly found that my father seems to have become shorter, his back is slumped, and his walking is not as sharp as before, and he has to raise his head slightly and talk to himself from an upward perspective.
Dad is old, not used to using smartphones, and has been asking Zhao Xin how to use it. The tap water in my rural hometown is freezing cold in winter, and it stops at 7 p.m., and my father doesn't know how to solve it. Zhao Xin bought a machine, debugged it for two days, and finally had hot water at home that could be supplied throughout the day. In the past half a month since returning home, he has been busy before and after, debugging all the electrical appliances that can be repaired at home, Zhao Xin sometimes feels in a trance, when he was a child, his father was the busy person.
After 13 consecutive days of quarantine, Lin Jiamo finally returned to her hometown in Yichun. The whole process of returning home, she was exhausted, and there was little patience or physical strength left. At the same time, a widespread wave of infections has arrived. One by one, the family members had sore throats, hoarse throats, and fevers, and Lin Jiamo, her lover and children had already been impatient in Taiwan, becoming one of the few healthy people in the family. In the next half month, grabbing fever, taking care of her family and taking care of the children became a new task for her and her lover.
Lin Jiamo seems to have become a "big parent" - first taking care of the infected parents, and then taking care of her grandmother, grandfather, and aunt who lives with them.
When she was a child, her grandmother was the one who loved her the most, and her grandmother had a secret base with her, and all the snacks and delicious food were placed in a triangular TV cabinet in the old house. Open the cabinet and there will always be the biggest peaches, the sweetest strawberries, and the most expensive chocolate Grandma can buy. When she was not married, Lin Jiamo went home for the New Year, ran to her grandmother's house first, hugged her grandmother, and said to her, "I'm back!" ”
In the past few days, my lover has returned to Taiwan with her child, and I originally wanted Lin Jiamo to follow me back. According to her previous thoughts, the New Year did not seem to be much important, and some years she took advantage of the Spring Festival to go abroad to play. But because of what happened in the past few years, she told her lover that she would not go back first, "The sky is falling, and I will accompany my grandmother through this year."
For those who have not returned home for three years, the way home is the way to grow up. The pandemic has changed a lot in three years, and many people's lives have changed dramatically. Some people go through important moments in their lives and suddenly go from being a child to an adult. When they return home, they realize that the family is inseparable, they need to take responsibility for the lives of others, and when they reach a new stage, they have to take over the burden.
In the past few years in Australia, Yang Junjun feels that he is gradually transitioning to a middle-aged man, he was 28 years old when he first came, 32 years old this year, in the first year of the epidemic, he married his girlfriend who studied and graduated in Australia, and gave birth to a child the next year. While becoming a father, he also realized the responsibility of his son. He and his lover originally decided to settle in Australia, but now they are hesitating, how will their parents retire in the future, whether to return to China with their lover's children, or let their parents also live in Australia? He hadn't thought of too good an answer yet. Chen Xi also said: "Before the epidemic, I was a student, I didn't understand anything, after the epidemic, I was married, I was already working, and I felt that I suddenly grew up. ”
In any case, they can have a good year, a new year that is freer and more hopeful than ever.
▲ Yang Junjun's family in Australia. Figure / Courtesy of respondents
The day before leaving from Daishan, Zhong Lingling brushed the Spring Festival video 20 years ago on Douyin, and on the road that had not yet been well built, the motorcycle army took her family, New Year goods, rushed day and night, and a pregnant woman, also sitting on a motorcycle, went home with her lover for the New Year. After watching that video, Zhong Lingling lost sleep, "When I was studying, I felt that the Spring Festival had nothing to do with me, and after getting married, the Spring Festival had a lot to do with me."
Early the next morning, the family set off, and she and her husband took turns driving, and everyone first wore two layers of masks, drove a long way, took off one, drove out for a while, and took off the other. She opened the window of the car and felt that the wet and cold sea breeze by the sea was getting farther and farther away from her, and the more inland, the drier and milder the air became, the vegetation on both sides of the highway quickly swept past her eyes, and the distant scenery changed from lakes and plains to mountains.
Home is getting closer and closer, and on the highway, Zhong Lingling saw the license plates of Sichuan and Chongqing, and felt so kind, "I want to say hello to him and ask him if you want to go home." The closer to home, the more anxious she wanted to go home, and in the last hour, Zhong Lingling couldn't help but feel that her husband drove slowly, and said several times in a row: "Drive faster!" ”
Home, just ahead.
▲ After Lin Jiamo returned to Jiangxi, he ate the meal of his hometown. Figure / Courtesy of respondents
(Except for Yang Junjun, other characters in the text are pseudonyms)
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