Wei Lili, a woman who delivers milk to households with her husband in Beijing, hadn’t been back to her hometown in Shanxi Province for three years, owing to travel restrictions imposed to control the spread of COVID-19. This year, as China has optimized its pandemic control measures and lifted travel restrictions, she booked two train tickets to her hometown well in advance for a reunion with her children and other family members to celebrate the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, which fell on January 22.
Wei has two daughters: One is around 20 and the other is 5. When her younger daughter was only 6 months old, Wei came to Beijing with her husband to work and left her children in the care of her parents-in-law.
Before the pandemic, she had returned home every year for the Spring Festival. On Spring Festival Eve, she used to make dumplings while watching
