Only 20m cheap train tickets for 140m people travelling from the Pearl River Delta
Wang Liping is desperate to go home to reunite with her two daughters for the Lunar New Year, but will probably have to pay for an expensive journey this year.
Train tickets for the Lunar New Year season are sold two days ahead of time, but usually sell out within an hour. If the 32-year-old migrant worker from Huaihua, Hunan, cannot get a ticket, she will have to pay 330 yuan more for a coach ticket, nearly a fifth of her monthly salary as a maid.
Ms Wang said she had enjoyed family reunions twice a year since coming to work in Guangdong province seven years ago. But the high cost of travel during holidays had kept her apart from her two daughters in Huaihua, about 1,200km from Guangzhou, at other times.
It has been estimated that about 140 million people in the Pearl River Delta will travel in late January and early February, but only 20 million cheap train tickets are available.
For migrant workers, securing a ticket can be a herculean task.
