No New Year reunion for some China workers

[BEIJING] As millions join the world's largest annual human migration, some in China will not return home for the New Year, fearing the rising costs of seasonal gifts and ridicule from their families.

Nanny and cleaner Tian earns 3,500 yuan (S$738) a month looking after the children of an expat couple in Beijing, and has not seen her own family in two years.

But if she goes home to Henan province, 800 kilometres to the south, she will be expected to hand out just as much - in red envelopes known as hongbao - to non-working members of her extended family, especially children.