“What’s Peppa?” This has been perhaps the hottest online question among Chinese recently. Peppa, a British cartoon character from the show “Peppa Pig,” has again taken Chinese social media by storm after first rising to fame in China last year. 

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© Image | Weibo

 

The latest trailer of the upcoming film “Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year” released on Thursday has touched the heartstrings of many Chinese.

© Image | Weibo

What is it about?

 

The trailer tells a story of a loving grandfather Li Yubao, who lives alone in rural China, finding and making a Peppa as a gift for his grandson who lives in a big city. Before Spring Festival Eve, Li learned from his grandson via a phone call that the three-year-old likes Peppa, so Li decided to fulfill his grandson’s wish. 

Li is not well informed and not good at using electronic devices. To get the information he needed, he looked up a dictionary, asked villagers and went to a small shop to search for clues. He finally learned what Peppa truly was from a fellow villager who had worked as a nanny in Beijing. 

 

From the villager’s description, Li made his own Peppa sculpture based on a pink air blower. All he wished for was a family reunion, but his son did not come back. As a disappointed Li walked on the road alone, his son drove a car behind him and invited him to celebrate the Chinese New Year together in the city. 

 

They had a reunion dinner happily in the end, and indeed, Li’s handmade Peppa was welcomed by his grandson.

Why it is trending?

 

In the five-minute trailer, Peppa is not only the pink cartoon character that we already known, but also a symbol of the close family ties among Chinese family members. The reason why it is trending? A real China.

Check the video 

© Video | Weibo

Family reunion– an everlasting topic 

for Chinese during CNY

The background of the trailer is about a family reunion, which is an everlasting topic for Chinese during the lunar New Year. Family is indeed a key part of Chinese civilization.

The fast pace of urbanization in China makes the festival even more important, offering young Chinese who have left their hometowns in search of better opportunities a chance to return to their roots. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), China’s urban permanent population at the end of 2017 reached 813.47 million, 20.49 million more than in 2016. 

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Reverse Spring Festival travel rush

The increasing number of urban residents reflects that more young Chinese are moving to the city and settling down. The declining workforce in rural China has left more elderly folks in such areas without the care and support of their children. From the trailer, the information asymmetry between rural and urban areas means Peppa is a virtual unknown in the village. 

Another impact of the increasing urban-rural migration is a phenomenon called reverse Chunyun, or reverse Spring Festival travel rush, which has appeared in recent years. The phrase describes parents in rural areas travelling instead to visit their children in the big cities to celebrate the Spring Festival together, as it can relieve the pressure on the roads during the annual travel peak.

According to Chinanews, the hottest destinations of reverse Chunyun this year are: 

• Shanghai, 

• Beijing,

• Guangzhou, 

• Shenzhen, 

• Hangzhou, 

• Nanjing, 

• Tianjin, 

• Qingdao, 

• Ningbo

• Xiamen.

The 2019 Spring Festival travel rush is just around the corner. The peak period is from January 21 to March 1 during which about 2.99 billion trips are expected to be made, up 0.6 percent compared with the previous year, said Lian Weiliang, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).