Mass migration home starts for Chinese New Year

BEIJING (Reuters) - Millions of Chinese migrant workers have begun jamming train stations to buy tickets home for the Lunar New Year break, but millions of others will be relying on scalpers to get away for the year's most important holiday.

Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is the biggest of two "Golden Week" holidays, giving migrant workers their only chance of the year of returning to their home provinces with gifts for the family, the biggest movement of humanity in the world.

Last year, that movement was disrupted by the worst winter weather in the south in decades, and this year the holiday has little meaning for millions who have lost their jobs as factories have shut down in the once-booming south and gone home early.

The holiday begins on January 26. The second Golden Week of the year celebrates National Day on Oct 1.

More than 80 percent of those still planning to make the trip thought scalpers or "connections" were their best bet to secure a ticket, state television said.

Just over 15 percent preferred braving the sea of shoving travellers at sales windows for the travel period that officially started Sunday and lasts four weeks, with 188 million passengers expected to take to trains.

Crowding on to overbooked trains to stand for cramped rides lasting days in some cases is an annual ritual.

"The ride is very long, but I will only be able to get a seat (rather than a sleeper)," said Cao Yueyun, a 22-year-old student waiting at Beijing Station for a ticket to his hometown in rural Hunan province.

"Because of last year's snowstorm I haven't been home for two years."