How much should we pay for family reunion? (2)

Edited and translated by Chen Lidan, Huang Jin and Wang Xin, People's Daily Online.

•Name: Qiu Lei
•Gender: male
•Age: 30
•Occupation: chef in a Beijing fast food restaurant
•Hometown: Henan province

•Departure Date: two days before lunar year
•Distance from Home: 915.3 kilometers
•Route of Travel: Beijing West Railway Station > Zhumadian Railway Station (costs 120 yuan and 11 hours)-> take shuttle bus to home (costs 10 yuan and 2 hours )

•Time Cost of Travel: 13 hours
•Total cost of Travel: 130 yuan for one-way travel, occupies a small proportion of monthly incomes.

•Background: Wang Ran has been working as a chef in Beijing for 10 years. He said he went back to hometown twice a year. His wife is a waitress in another restaurant in Beijing. They left their two children in hometown with their parents and they haven’t seen the children for nearly half a year. Qiu said it only takes six hours to arrive home by high speed train, but the fare is more expensive than ordinary trains. The monthly income of this couple is 5,000 yuan in total which is not easy to cover the living expenses. His new year wish is to open a restaurant in Beijing, but he still needs time to raising money.

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