magic is the answer!

As the Spring Festival is approching, millions of migrants start heading back home. And during this time, train tikets, illegal ticket dealers, and super crowded railway stations would become the center of public attention every year.

Several days ago, a photo taken at Dongguan railway station was published. In the photo, some staff members were helping passengers get on the train by climbming the windows. Then two heads of the station were dismissed. Yeasterday, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Railways said that they were just dismissed from their original positions but their contracts are still on and they have now been transferred to another railway station and continue to serve the industry.

This is an incident of quick response we rarely see in this country. However, passengers trying to get on a train through the window with the help of the staff, is it their fault? Is it within their responsibility and power to eliminate this kind of issue?

Dongguan is one of the centers of migrant workers in China. On that particular day, there were about 1,500 passengers waiting on the platform to get on the train within four minutes. Passengers want to get on the train, because otherwise they might miss the only chance to go home for the whole year; do you have any idea how hard it is to get a train ticket during this time?! For the staff, they want to help them to the passengers to get on the train and go home. Yes, it is probably not the right thing to do, however, what else can they possibly do? And yes again, for the heads of the railway station, they are somehow responsible for their negligence. However, is it something they should take full responsibility for?

There are definitely a lot of issues in railway station management, but I'm not going to pour out my complaints here (well, last November, I had a very unpleasant encouter with one of the staff at Nanjing railway station) I agree with the opinions that it's more of a problem of the incomplete institutions and flawed system. With this huge number of population, eagerness to get quick success and instant benefits is not going to work out. It's very wierd that the authorities sometimes talk about sticking to principles and dealing with things with absolute strictness; and sometimes they talk about '..., in principle' , which leaves out wide space for unpredictable flexibilities. And some policies tend to go into two extremes. Things have to be done step by step, any rush creates more problems.

Anyway, this still sounds like complaints. Then only thing I can hope for is everybody gets home safely and stay at home for a safe and happy Spring Festival. There have been a lot of terrible safety issues in some neighborhood and public places reported on the news. How do we ensure our sense of happiness when we have to worry about our personal safety all the time? How do we defend and protect ourselves? We should have learned some martial arts or magic tricks.