... and home can be thousand of miles away !
Netizens call for cheaper ‘no-seat’ train tickets
Netizens are calling for lowering the cost of train tickets that do not offer a seat, but railway authorities say the price is already at rock bottom.Netizens call for cheaper ‘no-seat’ train tickets
A publicity official at the Ministry of Railways who declined to give his name said on Thursday the ministry does not try to profit from no-seat tickets.
“But during the travel rush, there is a high demand for such tickets, because many people won’t make it home otherwise,” he said.
The price of no-seat tickets is at the bottom of the railway’s ticket pricing structure, but so are those for hard-seat tickets, so the two cost the same, he said.
The official was responding to a recent online poll in which a majority of respondents said the ministry should not charge passengers without seats the same price as those with seats.
They supported a plan calling for the railway to sell no-seat tickets at half price.
The ministry did not respond to the proposal on Thursday.
By Thursday afternoon, nearly 27,000 users of China’s Sina Weibo micro-blogging site participated in the poll. Ninety-three percent support lowering no-seat ticket prices.
Wei Zhuang, 30, who started the poll, wrote his first micro blog post on Jan 12 saying no-seat tickets were unfairly priced.
It was written in reaction to his experience in early January returning from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, to Guangzhou, Guangdong province, where he was working.
“I was surprised to see that migrant workers who bought no-seat tickets had to rest in washrooms and even under seats during the nearly 20-hour trip,” Wei said on Thursday.
The Ministry of Railways is a public service provider and should improve the ticketing system and charge a different price for no-seat tickets, he said.
His post was reposted 165,000 times by Thursday afternoon, and received nearly 40,000 comments from netizens.
A college student named Xu, 21, from Tianjin University of Science and Technology, said that with so many people supporting the proposal, it could eventually influence train ticket pricing policies.
Xu said it is unfair to charge full price for a train ticket for a no-seat ticket and that she would not buy one.
Railway officials said the price of no-seat tickets was already very cheap, but Wen Hao, a white-collar worker in Beijing, said the ministry does not disclose its operating costs and is therefore not supervised by the public.
He said as a customer, he does not know how the pricing system for railway tickets is determined and he believes it should be open to the public.
Yu Hui, 25, who works at a newspaper in Beijing, decided not to return to his hometown this year because of the difficulty of buying a train ticket.
“Actually, you are lucky if you get a ticket with no seat. So many people want to go home for family reunions before Spring Festival Eve,” Yu said.
Yu said she could accept paying full price for a ticket with no seat. “But if the ticket with no seat had at least some sort of discount, I would feel better,” Yu said.
Contact the writer at jinhaixing@chinadaily.com.cn
Meanwhile, let's explore the Middle Kingdom ...
Exploring China’s interior: Southwest 西南 Day 6: Chengdu, Sichuan Province
» Politics » Hiddenharmonies.org
// Day 6: Chengdu 成都, capital of Sichuan Province
by WanderingChina
Chengdu 天府之国, capital of Sichuan province has been on the agenda for the longest time. It has retained its original city name since its founding more than two millennia ago in 311BC, the same cannot be said of many other Chinese cities. A fan of the Three Kingdoms narrative – it was great being able to investigate the historicity of such seminal characters in the Chinese psyche – such as Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang. Of course, being in this part of China during Sino-Japanese tension was also most interesting. Today it is one of China's most liveable cities, famous for its giant pandas and is home to more than 14 million. Often tremendously foggy, there are only a few times a year locals actually get to fully embrace the sun.
#1 Tianfu Square: At the square facing the Sichuan Science and Technology Museum with Mao statue. A dynamic gathering place, it is a must visit if one ever visits Chengdu.
#2 The square itself sees a sunken metro hub with subterranean shopping options. Once the site of the imperial palace torn down during the cultural revolution. For a city with so much history, it is thought provoking how little of the legacies of past – often so richly embedded in Chinese texts are physically left.
#3 Starbucks has made significant headway into the Chinese psyche of late along the wave of MacDonaldization >30RMB for a standard coffee there is suggestive. A typical canned drink such as the herbal tea 加多宝 costs 10 times less in the provision shops
#4 The other side of China's rise. Coca Cola versus wandering spirit.
#5 Opulent, symbolic and contentious. According to a local contact, this complex, now called the Tianfu International Financial Centre seriously irked Wen Jiabao during his visit to Chengdu after the devastating Sichuan earthquakes of 2008. The timing could not have been worse. Chengdu municipal officials moving into luxurious new city government offices at the 1.2b Yuan complex with while others struggled to survive drew severe public criticism. During my visit, entry was not encouraged. Word was given that officials would sell the buildings and use the money for earthquake reconstruction, however one office block of the five 'Beijing bird's nest' lookalikes is still being used.
#6 Chengdu East Train Station – obviously built to handle large crowds – 68 hectares large in total with 14 platforms and 26 tracks.
#7 New Century Global Center. Touted to be the largest business platform in West China, it is also the world's largest single structure. Measuring 500m across and 400m wide with 1.7 million square metres of floor space, the marine-themed center features a 500m long artificial beach inside with a 150m-long LED screen and an artificial sun for often foggy Chengdu – which is actually more than a thousand kilometres from any coast. Slated for turnkey business dealings there are hotels, offices, retail outlets, arts centres and concert venues inside. Claimed to be able to fit 20 Sydney Opera Houses, it was so large my peripheral vision could not capture it all at once, not lest the tablet computer's built-in camera.
#8 Not yet open for business, I was able to get a glimpse of this scale model by visiting the retail and office space sales centre.
#9 Steaming ahead to the age of convenience? Pre-packed herbal soup for the time-strapped.
#10 The staggering price of imported infant milk formulas was raised as a concern by a few local friends at the parenting phase of their lives.
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