How Reverse Chinese New Year Turned Shenzhen Into the New Hometown

For decades, Chinese New Year followed one simple rule: you go home. It did not matter where you lived or whether getting there required two trains, one plane, three buses and the emotional resilience of a hostage negotiator.

Then someone apparently looked at the ticket prices and said: What if the parents come here?

Welcome to Reverse Chinese New Year, or 反向过年. In Shenzhen, bookings connected with this reverse migration reportedly jumped 180 percent this year. More parents are travelling to Shenzhen instead of waiting for their adult children to return home. It sounds like a minor logistical adjustment. It isn't. Once Mum and Dad arrive, you discover that reversing the direction of travel does not necessarily reverse anything else.

The Economics of Loving Your Parents

The first reason is surprisingly unromantic: money. One Shenzhen resident calculated that taking the whole family home by high speed rail would cost around 5,000 RMB. Flying the parents to Shenzhen cost roughly 1,000 RMB each. Family tradition remains sacred … but 3,000 RMB is 3,000 RMB.

“Mum, I miss you terribly.” “We miss you too.” “Wonderful. I found you a flight Tuesday at 7:15 in the morning.”

Romance is alive.

Mum and Dad arrive. Hugs. Food. “Oh, very nice!” “So high!” “So modern!” You proudly show them the guest room, which until yesterday was an office, storage facility and archaeological site for things you had forgotten you owned.

Everybody goes to bed happy. You think: This was a brilliant idea.

Give it time.

The next morning, Mum wakes up before you. Never underestimate what a mother can achieve in somebody else's apartment between 6:00 and 8:30 a.m. By the time you wake up, the refrigerator has entered a restructuring programme.

You had planned a nice day in Shenzhen. Mum has another plan: supermarket. Apparently your refrigerator is empty. You explain that you simply buy food when you need it. Mother looks at you. This is clearly not how civilisation works.

So you go shopping. Vegetables. Meat. Fruit. Rice. More vegetables. Things in bags whose purpose you don't know but which apparently become essential during Chinese New Year.

By evening, the fridge is full. Mum looks at it. Apparently, we are going shopping again tomorrow.

Then the packaging begins.

The older generation has a relationship with packaging that deserves serious academic study. Nothing is simply allowed to exist. Batteries need a little bag. The bag goes into a box. The box goes into a drawer. Sometimes the box itself goes into another bag.

Coins? Bag. Old cables? Bag. Three unidentified screws? Small bag. The manual for an appliance thrown away eight years ago? Obviously we keep that. In a bag. Inside a box. Somewhere safe.

Safe meaning nobody will ever find it again.

“Mum, where are the batteries?” “Second drawer.”

You open it. Fourteen bags and six boxes.

“Which one?” “The small bag.”

Of course. There are eleven small bags. Mum considers this sufficient information.

The system eventually reaches the freezer. You no longer see food, only parcels whose contents are anybody's guess. You want chicken. Twenty minutes later you are defrosting something.

Nobody knows what.

By now Dad has opinions about the air conditioning, Mum about the kitchen and both about what you pay for the apartment.

“You pay HOW much for this?”

Dad looks around again.

“And you don't even own it?”

We move on to another subject.

Somewhere along the way you also stop being the host, which is impressive because technically it is still your apartment. Normally, when you return home for Spring Festival, you become the child again. You may be 38 and run a company. Doesn't matter. Your mother can still tell you that you are wearing the wrong trousers.

Reverse Chinese New Year was supposed to change this. Now they are in your city. You made the itinerary. Chinese media even use the expression 春节主理人 … Spring Festival organiser … for these young hosts.

For perhaps the first time in Chinese family history, Mum arrives and somebody else has made the itinerary.

This lasts until lunchtime on Day Two.

And Shenzhen apartments do not help. On the first day, four adults feel cosy. A few days later, you begin to suspect the walls are moving inward during the night. There is food everywhere. Dad has found a more economical way to use the air conditioner. Mum has discovered that you do not eat enough fruit.

Then comes the question you knew would eventually arrive:

“So … when are you getting married?”

Reverse Chinese New Year can reverse trains and planes. It cannot reverse Mum and Dad.

The Hotel Suddenly Makes Sense

Some adult children invite their parents to Shenzhen and book them a hotel. At first, this sounds slightly heartless.

“Happy Chinese New Year, Mum and Dad. Wonderful to see you. You are staying three kilometres away.”

After a few days, it starts to sound like excellent family planning. Breakfast buffet. Private bathroom. And at 10 p.m. that beautiful sentence: “Good night. See you tomorrow.”

Officially, the hotel is a gift for Mum and Dad. In reality, everybody benefits.

Eventually, Mum and Dad Go Home

Eventually, the visit ends. Mum and Dad return home and you begin opening drawers to find out where you live now.

You might think Reverse Chinese New Year is over. Not quite. Now comes the reporting phase.

Back home, Mum and Dad meet their friends for morning tea and casually mention their trip to Shenzhen. Somewhere between the first dim sum and the second pot of tea, your career begins to improve dramatically.

You may have a perfectly normal job in Shenzhen. According to Dad, you are now “in management.” Twenty minutes later, you are “responsible for a very important department.” By the time the bill arrives, Dad has promoted you twice and increased your salary by an amount even you would be happy with.

The apartment gets bigger, the company becomes more important and your salary wisely remains unspecified … which usually makes it sound enormous.

After all, the children have their LinkedIn. The parents have morning tea. And frankly, I am not sure which one is better for your career.

And Yet Something Bigger Is Happening

Behind all the bags, boxes and supermarket expeditions, Reverse Chinese New Year says something about Shenzhen. For decades, Shenzhen was the city people came to for work. When Chinese New Year arrived, millions left because home was somewhere else.

Now Mum and Dad are travelling in the opposite direction. They see where their children actually live, complain about the apartment price, fill the refrigerator and somehow make the place feel different within a few days.

Shenzhen is no longer simply the place their children work. Their lives are here. Their apartments, partners and children may be here. Increasingly, Chinese New Year is here too.

Some things, of course, remain unchanged. Mum will still worry that you are not eating properly. Dad will still wonder why everything costs so much. And somebody will still ask why you haven't married yet.

For decades, Chinese New Year meant Shenzhen went home.

Now, increasingly …

home is coming to Shenzhen.

Which is wonderful. Just remember one thing before you invite it:

Hide the batteries.

Chris Gassner