There are just a few days left until the Chinese New Year, and Yuwen, 33, has been out of work for more than six months. "If I had the choice, I definitely wouldn't go back home," she says.
More than 380 million people who live inside of China only go home once a year, and it's usually during the Lunar New Year, which is the most important holiday for family reunions. This is why the "chunyun" travel rush during the Spring Festival is the biggest yearly mass migration in the world. In honor of the Year of the Dragon, the government is expecting a record nine billion trips.But Yuwen is scared of going home because he thinks his relatives will question him about everything in his life, especially his job and its pay and perks. They are aware that he lost his job and have been understanding. They agreed with Yuwen that telling his family that he still has his old job is the best thing to do.
Also, Yuwen will only be with his family for three days. Usually, he would be there for three weeks. He says, "It will be over soon."
Watch: People yell during Lunar New Year
Many young people have said on well-known social networks like Xiaohongshu and Weibo that they will not be going home for the holiday. Like Yuwen, some of them just lost their jobs.
More than one in five Chinese city dwellers aged 16 to 24 who were released by the government in June 2023 were jobless. Then, China stopped releasing figures on youth unemployment until last month. Right now the number is 14.9%, but that number doesn't include kids.
The Chinese economy is slowing down after decades of rapid growth, and the rebound that was supposed to happen after Covid has not happened yet. Its housing market has crashed, and the local government is taking on more debt.
But the trust crisis is probably the most difficult problem. Investors are afraid that China's leaders will put party control ahead of economic growth. When Xi Jinping was in charge of China, private businesses like tech companies and private training were shut down. Also, things have gotten worse between China and the West over the last few years.
Yuwen is hurt by the restrictions on private businesses.
In 2014, he chose to get a master degree in teaching Chinese in Beijing, which is about 300 km (185 miles) from his home in Hebei province. "Ride the wave of a national policy" was the reason. Mr. Xi had started the Belt and Road Initiative a year before to gain more power in other countries.
He quickly got a job at a private teaching company after graduating. His job was to manage and train foreign tutors for Chinese students. But in July 2021, the Chinese government banned private tutoring for money so that kids wouldn't have to work as hard. This was the end of the $120bn (£95bn) teaching business.
Yuwen had to change his business. In January 2023, he got a job at a big tech company. He was in charge of making rules for live-streaming on its international sites and overseeing the work of well-known influencers. It was only five months long, though.
Reuters says that Big Tech has lost more than $1 trillion in value since the end of 2020 because of government crackdowns. The US then said it would punish Chinese tech companies because it was worried about Beijing's national security laws. That was the last straw for Yuwen's business, and it chose to move its operations outside of China.
Yuwen says that just in the last six months, he has sent out his CV more than 1,000 times. Even though he has already lowered his salary standards, he still hasn't heard back from anyone about a job. "At first, I was pretty calm, but then I started to feel more and more anxious." "I didn't think it would be this hard," he says.
Fit trainer Qingfeng from the southern city of Shenzhen has chosen to travel alone for the Chinese New Year.
He's going to lie to his parents and say he can't afford the tickets to get home. "Who doesn't want to spend the New Year at home?" But it makes me feel bad."
After getting out of the service in 2019, Qingfeng got a job as a fitness instructor. He says he could make around 20,000 yuan ($2,800; £2,200) a month in Shanghai. He went to Shenzhen last year to be closer to his girlfriend, who is studying in Hong Kong, which is right next door.
The 28-year-old man got a job with a foreign trade company because he wanted a more stable job. But they only got 4,500 yuan a month. The rent in Shenzhen is at least 1,500 yuan a month, so this couldn't last.
After two months on the job, Qingfeng quit. He now has a job at a new gym that will open after the holidays. He says he lost almost all of his savings last year, so he doesn't want to see his family. Even though he doesn't want to say more, he does say, "You can say that I have failed in the stock market."
Early in February, Chinese stocks hit their lowest level in five years. Chinese investors took to the US embassy's Weibo account to vent their anger, and some even asked the US to step in and help. Some people didn't like the present leadership. Since then, all of those posts have been taken down.
Because of the bad economy, Qingfeng isn't sure if he will be able to get people to join the new gym. "Many large gyms have shut down lately because of their high debts."
But the economy isn't the only reason why some young Chinese people don't want to go home for the holiday.
Some single women, like Xiaoba, say they don't want to get married and settle down because their families want them to.
"I've worked all over the country." My mom will find a guy out of the blue and ask me to go on a blind date whenever I go to a city. "That's crazy," the 35-year-old project manager says.
China's people have been going down for two years in a row.
People are afraid that the country will lose its young workers, who are very important to its business, because it doesn't have many babies. The number of registered weddings has been going down for nine years in a row, which shows that young people are becoming less and less likely to get married and have kids.
To deal with the growing number of older people, Mr. Xi said in October that women had a "unique role" in supporting traditional virtues and that a "new marriage and childbearing culture" was needed. The government has tried to increase marriage and birth rates, but so far their efforts have not worked.
It's no longer scary for Xiaoba to get married, and she's loving her life. She wants to spend the Lunar New Year with her cat and watch the big CCTV New Year's Gala at her rented flat in Shenzhen. This event airs every Spring Festival Eve.
Yuwen, on the other hand, hopes that the next Lunar New Year is better. "Because I'm determined, I think I can do it." I've never thought about giving up."
He can't change some things, though. "I am not too optimistic about the economy in 2024."