Livingston Market Consultants

Take Me Home, High-speed Rail – While I was talking to my husband about my Plan A 1+2, which is to stand by for the expensive tickets to travel to Station Key, my husband stopped me. He proposed that we exchange our Plan B driving with our Plan A train riding. At the same time, Plan C emerged in my head. We can take a non-stop to Station Key and travel back! Of course, we can also play around time for our other plans, etc. As the saying goes, in China a lot of things are difficult but everything is possible! #china #rail

Take Me Home, High-speed Rail – But the wish to go home cannot be bought by money. There is no single ticket left including the expensive ones. And the second way to pay more to get back home is to buy the ticket for the key stations. Our Station A lies close to the provincial capital along the rail line, but we reach our station first and then the train will travel further to the key station some time later. Usually, there are more tickets reserved for the key stations which gives us the opportunity to buy a longer trip but getting off at my real destination. Even this plan does not seem to work at the moment – there are always other people preempting me. #china #rail

Take Me Home, High-speed Rail – Paying more to buy a train ticket sounds like a straightforward strategy but in real practice it can be very complicated. First, I can treat us nicely for tickets in First Class and Business Class. In our high-speed rail system, First Class is the good one and Business Class is the real good one. So if a normal coach ticket is about 100 RMB, then a First Class one is about 200 while the Business Class one is at least 300 RMB. #china #rail

Take Me Home, High-speed Rail – I would not give up my Plan A (high-speed rail) easily. So my Plan A.1 is to try standby. I filled about 10 standby slots and that was like buying lottery tickets and the worst case is that I will get back all my money and none gets hit. My Plan A.2 is to pay more to get the tickets. #china #rail

Take Me Home, High-speed Rail – But my Plan A fails in the first place. Usually train tickets can be bought 15 days prior to the travel date, so when my alarm went off at 800am and when I got onto that ticket APP, there was no single ticket left. During the Chinese New Year time, there are about 50-60 trains going through that Station A (our home town) every day and about 1 in 3 of the trains stops there, but I could not get a single ticket. #china #rail

Take Me Home, High-speed Rail – His home is about 600 km from Shanghai. And in our prime time, i.e. when we were young and when the road had no traffic, it took us about 6-7 hours to drive back home. But now driving falls back to be our Plan B because we have the high-speed rail to enjoy a pleasant 3-hour train trip from Shanghai back home. And most of our relatives at home have bought their new cars during these years and they must be more than happy to drive us around during our stay. #china #rail

Take Me Home, High-speed Rail – This year’s Chinese New Year is on February 10th. The most fun part about the New Year is to prepare for the New Year. Nowadays, there is not many challenges in food purchases and meal preparations but travelling home becomes a big one. My husband is determined to go back home for this New Year as we are absent from his home for the past 4 years. #china #rail

Chinese Generations – The 5th and the last generation is the Purple Generation who were born in 2000 – 2006. They are a group of 150 Mn young people and in their memory, on the one hand they see China becomes an important player in the international arena but at the same time, they also see trade wars and conflicts and real wars in some parts of our world.  I have to say that this is still a very simple way to look at us as each generation has the size of the population of a huge country. But a good starting point. #china #generation

Chinese Generations – The next is the Gold Generation, who are born in 1991 – 1999, or the post 90s. There are about 320 Mn in this group and if we choose one tag to describe them, they are confident. During their growth, they witnessed the Beijing Olympics, and China’s economy becoming the World Second. #china #generation

Chinese Generations – The next generation is the Light Sea Blue Generation who are the mainstream pillars of today. They were born in 1975 – 1990, of about 340 Mn people. According to the report, this is a hard-working group, and about one in six of this group is called a ‘career perpetual motion machine’, more females than males. In consumption, they are the more rational group. #china #generation