the Motorcycle Rider Finally Returns to His Hometown
On the afternoon of the 11th, Wu Huajia returned to his hometown with three riding friends. What greeted him were the tears of his sister and the reunion meal prepared by his mother.
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“Feeling more timid as one approaches home, not daring to ask who’s coming.” On January 11th, it was the last day of the motorcycle “mini convoy” returning home. In the morning when Wu Huajia got on his motorcycle, he thought of this poem. Even the self-proclaimed “iron man” rider couldn’t help but feel the soft emotions of homesickness.
After a year away from home, how are his parents’ health? How many awards did the children receive this year? What meals have the parents prepared for him and the riders from afar? Thinking of these, Wu Huajia’s heart was pounding, as if he was holding a furnace, feeling warm inside.
On the noon of the 11th, Wu Huajia returned to his hometown with three riding friends. What greeted him were the tears of his sister and the reunion meal prepared by his mother. After traveling over 1300 kilometers in four days, he finally arrived home.
The last day, January 10th, was not smooth sailing. They set off from Sanjiang County, Liuzhou, Guangxi, and before reaching Guizhou, they took a short highway section through Hunan. Because they didn’t know that motorcycles were not allowed on the highway in Hunan, no one reminded them initially. When they reached a service area, a traffic policeman noticed them, escorted them off the highway to the national road, deducted a point, and fined them 100 yuan.
This section of the national road was very bumpy, surrounded by trees, without passing through any villages. The road was full of trucks, and they traveled through the mountains for two to three hours. “This is the part of the journey I hate the most; it’s too hard to ride,” said Mo Mo.
To make up for lost time, they rode until 12 midnight and only found a hotel to stay in Meitan at 12:30 am. “After taking a shower, I didn’t even check the time and just fell asleep,” Mo Mo said.
After riding at high speed for three consecutive days, Mo Mo felt sore in her limbs but could still persevere. However, Hu Dage, whose motorcycle is nearly 30 years old, didn’t mind, saying, “This journey is nothing to me.”
Hu Dage, 48, is about the same age as Mo Mo’s father. “Sometimes I wish my father could ride a motorcycle with me like Hu Dage,” said Mo Mo.
At 10 am on January 11th, they set off from Meitan County. After another hour or two, they would arrive at Wu Huajia’s hometown – Zhoujiaba in Puchang Town, Suiyang County, Zunyi City.
The riders couldn’t contain their excitement, bombarding Wu Huajia with questions about where they could go to play in his hometown and what attractions Zunyi had. Wu Huajia thought for a while and said, “I’ve never played around my home, so I don’t know what’s fun.”
At 11:30 am, the “mini convoy” arrived at Zhoujiaba. Wu Huajia’s parents, two children, and sister, Wu Yanfei, had come out early to greet him. Seeing her brother, whom she hadn’t seen for nearly a year, Wu Yanfei burst into tears.
Wu Huajia has two children, a 14-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl, who live with their grandparents in Zunyi. The children, seeing their father after a long time, were a bit shy and didn’t know what to say. “Sometimes when you haven’t seen each other for a long time, it feels a bit strange,” Wu Huajia felt the same.
The house was covered with the children’s awards. Wu Huajia proudly said that awards are only given once a semester, so they must be treated as important and displayed on the wall.
Wu Huajia’s mother had been busy for several days preparing a lavish meal for him and his riding friends. The meal included cured meat and sausages, handmade tofu, braised chicken, boiled beef, and Zhe’er Gen, a favorite of Guizhou people. This was Mo Mo’s first time in Guizhou. “I didn’t like it when I was in Guangdong, but I quite like the food prepared by Jia’s mother,” she said.
Mo Mo also thought of her hometown, Nanchong. Because she left home early for school and work, she didn’t spend much time in her hometown. She suddenly realized that she didn’t know much about her hometown. When asked about fun places in her hometown, she couldn’t answer.
After the meal, the riders of the “mini convoy” put down their motorcycles and drove with the reporters to the nearby Hongguoshu scenic area, a waterfall in the mountains similar to the famous Huangguoshu waterfall in Guizhou. The riders climbed up and down in the mountains, enjoying the beautiful landscape. However, because they were too tired from the journey, they only toured half of the scenic area before returning home.
In the evening, the riders stayed at Wu Huajia’s house. Wu Huajia began to clean his motorcycle, Hu Dage chatted with Wu Huajia’s parents, and Mo Mo quickly played with Wu Huajia’s two children. She is a single mother, and her child is about the same age as Wu Huajia’s daughter. She couldn’t help but think of her children who were far away in their grandmother’s house in Jiangxi.
After arriving at Wu Huajia’s house, Mo Mo made a video call to her children, proudly telling them, “Mom has ridden over 1300 kilometers and has arrived in Guizhou.”
On January 12th, the group decided to visit nearby scenic spots and planned to leave Guizhou on the 13th, ending this ride and returning to their respective hometowns. “If we don’t leave now, we might encounter rainy and snowy weather, and the roads will be difficult to navigate,” Mo Mo said.
According to previous reports by the Beijing News, on January 8th, the motorcycle “mini convoy” set off from Zhongshan, Guangdong, with the destination being Wu Huajia’s hometown in Zunyi, Guizhou. All of them worked in Guangdong and came from different places. They met because of their love for motorcycles. They decided to send Wu Huajia home and then return to their hometowns.
In the early 1980s, with the rapid economic development of the coastal areas of Guangdong, tens of millions of migrant workers flocked to the Pearl River Delta to work, repeatedly pushing up the number of people sent during the Spring Festival travel rush. Under the circumstances of “hard to get a ticket”, many of them began to group in threes and fives, agreeing to ride motorcycles back to their hometowns.