Chunyun -- Chūnyùn 

Chunyun (Chinese: 春运; pinyin: Chūnyùn, literally means spring transport), also referred to as the Spring Festival travel season or the Chunyun period, is a period of travel in China with extremely high traffic load around the time of the Chinese New Year. The period usually begins 15 days before the Lunar New Year's Day and lasts for around 40 days. The number of passenger journeys during the Chunyun period has exceeded the population of China, hitting over 2 billion in 2008. It has been called the largest annual human migration in the world. Rail transport experiences the biggest challenge during the period, and myriad social problems have emerged.

Why so many people?

Three main factors are responsible for the heightened traffic load during the Chunyun period.

First, it is a long-held tradition for most Chinese people to reunite with their families during Chinese New Year. People return home from work or study to have Reunion dinner with their families on New Year's Eve. Since the Chinese economic reforms of the late 1970s, there has been a massive migration from rural to urban areas over the course of the last few decades because new economic opportunities have emerged. The number of these migrant workers was estimated at 50 million at 1990 and unofficially estimated at 150 million to 200 million in 2000. During the Chunyun period, many of these laborers return to their home towns.

Second, Chinese education reforms have increased the number of university students, who often study outside of their hometown. The Spring Festival holiday period falls around the same time frame as their winter break. Among the 194 million railway passengers of the 2006 Chunyun period were 6.95 million university students.

university students in Chunyun period 

Finally, because the Spring Festival Period is a two week-long holiday in China, many people choose to travel for pleasure around this time. Tourism in mainland China is reaching record levels, further adding to the pressure on the transportation system.

These factors exacerbate current problems with China's current inter-city transportation systems. The railway network is insufficient to handle the number of passengers, and does not reach enough places. The locations not serviced by rail must rely on bus transport, which faces problems such as inadequate equipment and road network.

Impact on railway and bus systems

It was reported that 235 million passengers took trains during the 2012 Chunyun period. The shortage of railway resources led many passengers to pay double or even triple-priced tickets from scalpers or to wait in queues for upwards of a day's time at railway stations.

Scalpers

Due to the basic nature of Chinese railway tickets and the loosely set limitations on the number of "standing tickets" (which is basically a pass to get on a crowded railway car), Scalpers (Chinese: 黄牛, Pinyin: huánɡ niú, literally means yellow cow) profit greatly during the Chunyun period. Organizations of scalpers have emerged, and the scalpers inside the sometimes intricate network work collectively to make the most gain out of the tickets. They pick up tickets in great numbers minutes after they go on sale, and then deal them out in and around the railway station at highly inflated prices.

Air
Air transportation is less affected as most travelers are workers who cannot afford air transport, but nevertheless the Chunyun impact is increasing. In 2012 roughly 34 million passengers used air transportation as their method of travel inside China.

Movie

In 2009, a documentary film, Last Train Home (Chinese: 归途列车;  pinyin: Guītú Lièchē; literally "Homeward Train") is produced by Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin of EyeSteelFilm. It records the true situation while people're at Chunyun period. The film won the Best Documentary Feature at 2009 IDFA.