China_Stranded

In China Stranded for the Holiday By Loretta Chao During the winter time this year China experienced some of the worst snow and ice storms it had experienced in 50 years. Many of China’s big cities lost power and temporarily shut down the airports and railroads. Many people who work in the cities aren’t able to leave the country to visit their families because of these snow storms. There are certain migrant workers like Ms. Cui who has to stay stranded in China without any family or anything because of the overflow of people stranded at transportation areas and the bad weather. Many people had ordered train tickets but were unable to use them because of the weather so there were over 470,000 people who were asking for refunds on there tickets. Many of these workers are stranded in the middle of the city were the only space of living they have is under a big tent which is shared by other people in the center of the city. In China the New Years day is said to be on February 7th with the holiday period usually starting on the 6th. Ms. Cui has been trying to get a ticket home for weeks but hasn’t had any luck in doing so yet. It doesn’t look like she will be going home until the year 2009 because of all the overflow in the transportation system. There have been hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers sent in to over watch these migrant workers that are stranded in the middle of the city. There job is to make sure all these people are safe and taken care of. Hopefully all this will be resolved in the future so Chinese workers will not have to be separated from there family much longer.