How Bad is Travel in China Right Now?

Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 01.31.08 | 9:50 AM ET

It’s hard to imagine it getting worse. On Tuesday, we noted the bullhorn-wielding prime minister’s apology to travelers. Now, as a result of the worst winter storms in half a century, Chinese officials are asking migrant workers to cancel their trips home for Lunar New Year celebrations—no small request.

“The trip is often the only bright spot for workers who toil all year long in factories far from home,” the AP reports. “For an estimated 178 million people—the size of the combined population of Italy, France and Britain—the annual trek is sometimes the only opportunity to see family that they leave behind.”

Chinese officials have plenty of other concerns, too, including the storms’ threat to the fruit and vegetables grown in central China and, if the storms move northward, to wheat production.