Beijing: Thousands of people wearing thick coats and clutching suitcases line up in freezing conditions at Beijing Railway Station in the hope of snagging a ticket home for China’s Lunar New Year. The demand for tickets is so high that some people spend days trying to snare seats on public transport for the annual mega migration. Travellers taking part in the world’s largest annual human migra­tion must be home by tomorrow to usher in the new year on Saturday. Without Internet access or a smartphone, 65-year-old Wang Wen­­tai asked a more plugged-in friend to help him buy his train ticket back to Handan city in neighbouring Hebei province. “There were so many people in line, and I just didn’t know which line to wait in, so I wasted a lot of time,” he said.

Source: The Star January 26, 2017 01:14 UTC