Home for Chinese New Year: A courier’s long road home

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Mobile apps have become the main marketplace for Spring Festival goods in China. Orders for gifts and New Year essentials have increased by 50 percent year-on-year.

A delivery center. /CGTN Photo

To ensure goods reach their destinations, an army of over two million couriers and deliverymen must work through the holiday. Wei Jianli, 42, from Henan Province is one of them.

Wei Jianli deliving packages. /CGTN Photo

Wei Jianli works as a deliveryman in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, 800km away from his hometown. For him, Chinese New Year is the only time his whole family can get together. But he needs to deliver an average of 600 packages daily, throwing his plans for the festival into doubt.

Wei Jianli delivers packages by boat. /CGTN Photo

Even though his wife works on the customer service line at the same delivery center, Wei struggled to cope with a late rush of orders. In order to return home as early as possible, he turned to his son Jiangwei for help.

Packages to be delivered. /CGTN Photo

Jiangwei came to Hangzhou to help his parents the moment he finished college exams. Though the father and the son hadn’t seen each other for a long time, the last-minute rush left no time for them to say much to each other as the priority was doing everything possible to get home early.

Wei Jianli and his son. /CGTN Photo

As the countdown to Chinese New Year began, Wei Jianli finally met his delivery service quota. Though later than expected, he was happy to have his son’s help and he even had time to make his first New Year’s purchase: a new phone for his boy.

Wei Jianli’s son has a new phone online. /CGTN Photo

Wei Jianli was eventually due to start his journey back to his hometown two days before the festival. The journey can be long and arduous, but one wish overrides everything; being home in time for Spring Festival Eve.

A Wei family New Year banquet. /CGTN Photo

In these fast-moving times, many Chinese people are forced to work far away from home. But it's a sacrifice that’s made worth it once a year at Spring Festival when friends and loved ones reunite.

CGTN Photo

This is our story of Home for the Chinese New Year on CGTN.