A nanny who has returned to Sichuan from Beijing on a slow train for Spring Festival has much to celebrate and reflects on how far she has come since migrating a decade ago. Lin Shujuan trails how the rail trip fits into her life's journey.

Shen Xiaoxiang is glad she finally arrived home at dusk on Wednesday - just in time for the Spring Festival celebration that starts on Friday.

It has been a long journey for the 41-year-old Sichuan native who has been working in Beijing as a nanny for a decade.

The train that took her home is a temporary addition to increase rail capacity during the country's annual travel peak - the largest human migration on Earth. It's the slowest of its kind and takes 11 hours more to complete the 1,882-kilometer journey than the 29-hour K-category trains.

The train leaves at around 5 am. Shen's employer offered to pay for a cab to take her to catch the train early in the morning. She kindly refused and insisted on spending another eight sleepless hours the night before waiting at the station for fear of oversleeping and missing the train.

"Don't worry. I can cope," Shen says, chuckling.

She's so grateful for the additional train, which is slow but has tickets that are easily available. Two of her friends from the same village also took the train.

"We have one another for company," Shen says. "That makes the trip much easier."

It has been the best winter ever, she claims, and she has a lot to celebrate at the end of her grueling journey.

Her monthly salary has climbed to 4,500 yuan ($744) - a decent sum even in the eyes of most fresh graduates with master's degrees.

Her daughter, who has just turned 21, has recently been promoted to a management position after three years of waitressing at a restaurant in Sichuan's capital Chengdu. She'll also bring home Mr Right to meet her parents.

Shen says she simply can't miss the occasion.

Her son, who will soon turn 19, has become a full-time baker in one of the country's top bakeries after a three-month apprenticeship. He now earns 3,500 yuan a month.

And it has been a winter without snow.

"I hate snow," Shen says.

In late 2003, Shen - who only finished two years of primary school - arrived in the capital, where "you can earn money even just by mopping the floor", her younger sister had told her.

Mopping a busy underground parking lot was her first job.

That was a snowy winter.

The smell of gasoline made her nauseous. She lost her appetite and had migraines every working minute.

Because of the snow, every car that entered left tracks of muck that made her job seem excessively repetitive and futile.

She quit after eight days.

The mere mention of snow still takes her mind back to the cold, damp, smelly underground parking lot and muddy tire tracks.

Shen next landed a gig as a dishwasher at a high-profile Western restaurant - for one day.

Her hands wrinkled and turned white as the number of dishes she washed far exceeded her primary school math's ability to count them.

Her third job was as an in-house maid at a villa owned by a father and son. They treated her fairly and kindly.

But since the owners were usually out on business, Shen spent most of her time alone with their beloved pet - a boa constrictor.

She left after three days. But the boa slithered through her dreams for months.

Shen returned to a temporary shelter offered by other migrants from the area she grew up.

"I couldn't have hated myself more," she recalls. "I thought that I must be the stupidest person in the world."

She compared herself to her younger sister, who's much more literate and can ride a bicycle, so she can commute among different houses to clean on an hourly basis.

"I asked myself: 'What can I do?'" she says. "The answer was obvious. But I hated it."

Shen was the oldest child of a clan living within a square kilometer. Consequently, she has been taking care of children for as long as she can remember. The mother had also raised her own two children on her own since age 22.

"Caring for children was the last thing I wanted to do," she says.

"I thought I'd done it enough."

The first child under her care was her first younger sister, who died at age 2.

"She slipped into a ditch and was washed away and drowned," Shen recalls.

Shen was 4 and couldn't do anything but call for help and sob.

Her mother gave birth to another sister a year later. Shen essentially raised the girl.

Many of her nieces and nephews later also grew up under Shen's watchful eye.

After her own children were born, Shen shouldered all the house chores and herding while raising the kids. Her husband was away working odd jobs in the cities.

"I only remember they (the children) cried all the time or fell asleep somewhere on the ground before I could wash them for bed."

Her sister, who left her own son to his grandparents' care since he turned 10 months old, tried to persuade Shen to follow suit.

Shen considered it.

She remembers their house was one of the village's most dilapidated, since her husband was the family's only breadwinner.

But the loss of her first sister had lingered.

"I couldn't leave my children behind when they were so young," Shen says.

She waited until her daughter was 11 and her son was 9.

Then, Shen moved to Beijing and became a full-time nanny, starting at 400 yuan a month.

Her experience has paid off.

Shen's salary has increased in pace with her understanding of urban lifestyles and early-childhood education.

She has proven a quick study and has picked up skills that range from using a microwave to smartphone apps like WeChat.

And her present command of nearly 1,000 characters has proven she's not "stupid" like she'd believed.

Still, she sometimes has late-night breakdowns.

Shen still tears up when she remembers calling her son during Spring Festival the first year.

He told her not to buy him new clothes for the festival because an older relative had given him a secondhand jacket.

"He said: 'It fits well'. I still can't hold back my tears when I remember this," she says, choking up.

She was deeply moved by his consideration of the family's financial struggles.

Shen, who's virtually an early-childhood education expert, says she realizes in hindsight that raising two children by herself proved her wisest decision.

"They might be naughty, but they're close to me and know what I expect from them," Shen says.

"That's quite a relief as a parent. It makes all those hard years worthwhile."

The family has built a three-story house since their previous home was nearly razed by the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. They combined their entire savings with a government subsidy to construct it.

They waited until last month to finish furnishing it.

Before she left for home, Shen said she couldn't wait to see the completed house.

It's another blessing that makes the harrowing journey seem trivial, she believes.

"I'm just glad to have arrived home in time for Spring Festival," she says.

Contact the writer at linshujuan@chinadaily.com.cn.

Above: Shen Xiaoxiang takes care of a boy for a family in Beijing. Right: Shen packs up for her journey back to her hometown in Sichuan province for the Spring Festival holiday. Photos by Lin Shujuan / China Daily

(China Daily 01/30/2014 page20)