BEIJING — The Lunar New Year is coming, and China is on the move.
Hundreds of millions of people are traveling to their hometowns or making overseas trips ahead of the Feb. 17 holiday, known in China as Spring Festival, in what is considered the world’s largest annual human migration.
They will make a record 9.5 billion trips during the 40-day period around the holiday, up from 9.02 billion last year, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. That includes 540 million trips by train and 95 million by air, with the vast majority traveling by road.
For many workers living far from home, it’s the one chance they get each year to take a break and spend time with family. This year’s festival, which ushers in the Year of the Horse in the Chinese zodiac, starts Sunday with nine days of public holiday, one more than usual.
Xu Zhanyu, 41, a finance worker in Beijing whose hometown of Tangshan is about 100 miles away, said that although he can visit “any time,” Spring Festival is special.
“The biggest thing is the family reunion,” he said in an interview Wednesday outside the bustling Beijing Railway Station.
“It’s the only time you can let go of everything and just be with the people you love and those who love you. You don’t have to think about anything else.”
Officials hope the longer holiday will boost consumption amid an economic slump that is weighing on people’s minds.
“The overall environment isn’t very good,” said Liu Zhenqiang, 38, who works in tech. “I have many friends around me who are currently unemployed. So if you have a job yourself, you really need to cherish it.”
For some, the somber mood was captured by a plush toy that went viral after a stitching mistake by a Chinese retailer created the “crying horse,” greeting the new year with a mournful frown.
In the grand Chinese tradition of Spring Festival wordplay, another unlikely mascot has also emerged: the “Harry Potter” character Draco Malfoy. Some households are decorating their doors with pictures of a smirking Malfoy — played by English actor Tom Felton — because of the auspicious Chinese translation of his character’s name, “ma er fu,” which contains the words for “horse” and “fortune.”
This year is not just the Year of the Horse but the Year of the Fire Horse, which in Chinese astrology is associated with intensity, decisive action and excitement — or chaos.
Letao Wang, a professional astrologer in Hong Kong, compared the fire horse to a sports car.
“I think the fire horse here, in a good way, is telling us that a lot of things are going to move forward,” he said.
“It’s about speed. It’s about momentum. It’s about fast movement,” Wang said. “But at the same time, we really have to know how to focus on the road, so to speak, and how to balance ourselves so that we are driving the horse instead of falling off it.”
Chinese companies are trying to seize on that momentum before the holiday even begins, with tech giants engaged in a “red envelope war” as they compete for users for their AI assistants.
Tencent and Baidu are giving away a combined 1.5 billion yuan ($217 million) in digital red envelopes, which are small cash gifts traditionally handed out for the new year. Alibaba is spending 3 billion yuan ($431 million) on a discounted boba tea promotion for its Qwen chatbot that generated 10 million orders in the first nine hours, overwhelming shops and delivery riders and crashing servers.
A year after Chinese start-up DeepSeek rattled the global tech industry with the Spring Festival release of its low-cost AI model, new models are also expected from DeepSeek and others. They include Seedance 2.0, an AI video generator from TikTok owner ByteDance that was released Monday.
Though China has changed greatly in recent decades — with special foods and new outfits that were once rare holiday treats now everyday purchases for many middle-class people — Xu said some aspects of the new year celebration have stayed the same.
“We still kowtow to our elders and give New Year greetings; those traditions remain,” he said. “We also have a set menu for what to eat each day.”
“And we still buy new clothes — no matter what, everyone in the family puts on new clothes on the first day of the Lunar New Year.”
Liu Fang, an office clerk from Shandong province, said he thought 2026 “might be better than before,” despite the tough economy.
“Even though robots are replacing some labor, new industries and job openings will emerge,” he said.
“Ultimately, it comes down to hard work and personal ability.”
Janis Mackey Frayer, Dawn Liu and Erin Tan reported from Beijing, and Jennifer Jett reported from Hong Kong.
