Foreign media once called China's Spring Festival travel a rare "population migration" in human history. People who do not understand that China is ultimately a country that cannot break away from the local complex will also not understand why so many Chinese people choose to embark on the most difficult journey in the busiest season and the most crowded place. They are just in a hurry, but have to be desperate. The documentary "Train on the Way Home" does not show the ambition to explain this grand theme, but carefully tracks the back of a family in this overwhelming crowd of people during the Spring Festival, showing their grief, joy, separation and silence during the three years of this great migration - the cause and effect of which is self-evident.

At the beginning of the film, people were speechless. In the world's most representative processing factory in Guangzhou, children are playing on the street side piled with waste cloth. A few feet away is the roaring traffic. Their parents are using their most vigorous strength in their lives to hold up the mark of "make in China" for the Chinese economy; In the garment factory with roaring machines, babies are sleeping soundly on the table. At such a young age, they have already participated in this grand economic change. Their parents are bent over and busy, and have no time to think about why they came to this strange place, how long they stayed, and when they left. When parents with urban hukou are busy inviting expensive monthly aunts and queuing up to sign up for the parent-child class, they will not recall that there are many individuals with the same level of life in other corners of the city as them, and all they can do is to survive.

They come from the countryside. Poverty and inequality stimulate them day by day. Going to the city to earn money has become an irresistible call. In the film, Chen Suqin went out to work with her husband when her daughter was one year old. As a mother, this choice made her heart wrung, and she shed tears without hesitation. The purpose of going out is to earn money. The purpose of earning money is to support the education of the next generation, so that children can get out of poverty by accumulating cultural costs in the city. Such an idea is somewhat outdated in modern Chinese society, but it is still the eternal dream of urban migration in the minds of the vast rural population.

The beauty of Chen Suqin and his wife's hometown in the camera is almost poetic, quiet, simple, and aloof from the world. However, this beautiful and leisurely pastoral picture can only brew poverty and backwardness for generations in reality. At the end of the year, the couple experienced the anxiety and ecstasy of not being able to buy tickets. Finally, they were forced to move forward mechanically in a huge crowd that could engulf them at any time, but every step towards the destination was worth it, because the end point was the land connected by their blood. The familiar relatives and homes are the lighthouses waiting in their hearts day and night in the urban desert. The daughter who received the mobile phone as a New Year gift was happy, the son who was asked about his performance and showed a shy face was obedient, and the mother at home was healthy and satisfied for the time being, all of which saved their strength to return to the noisy, monotonous and cold processing workshop again. The gap between urban and rural areas is bound to change their geographical location and their closeness to the soil. The income in the city is more abundant than that in the countryside, which calls them to leave their hometown like a curse and timidly step into a stranger society. In the process of China's modernization and economic leap, rural China has quietly retired, and every village is silent and sad.

The city not only recklessly divests adults like Chen Suqin and his wife from their land, but also constantly seduces their children. So we were not surprised to find that the grown up Lizhen did not want to study at all and insisted on making money in the city. This girl, who was carrying her parents' lofty ideals, gave up her boring and hopeless life and became another tiny dust in the city world. This action almost instantly shattered the basic belief that parents rely on for survival. They were at a loss, but they were clumsy in persuading, which was naturally fruitless. This time, the three returned home together. The parents were worried in another round of suffocating waiting and crowding. What the daughter perceived was the absurdity and disorder of the world in front of her. Their world views have long been very different from each other in the distance.

The audience was reminded again that the huge gap between urban and rural dualization has changed not only the basic living conditions of rural China, but also the human relations order. Countless left behind children who have been separated from their parents since their infancy, like Lizhen, have created an irreparable rift with their parents' feelings. I don't know since when, parents' advice is no longer the standard they follow, parents' dream is no longer the hope that they are willing to put their efforts into, even parents themselves seem ordinary and stupid, even as daughters, yelling out to them "How do I want to do?" Even starting a fight is no longer an outrageous thing. "For us, freedom is happiness" Lizhen's still young face is dazzled by the red light and green wine in the Shenzhen nightclub. The future is uncertain, but home has no meaning to return.

At the end of the film, Chen Suqin, whose labor force is gradually exhausted, hesitates whether she should go home to see her son, so as not to repeat his sister's mistakes. She can't understand why the child can't understand his good intentions, but also loves his husband who will support him in other places. Whether to go or not, she has the solemn power of "to be or not to be" in Shakespeare's works, which has become the most difficult and highest topic in her life.