Editorial comment – Festive season

Listen to this article:

Homemade christmas gift wraps. Picture: https://www.hgtv. com

WE are just a week away from Christmas day.

Perhaps it is an apt time to remind ourselves about the need to be proactive and vigilant.

We are into the festive season.

This is when the movement of people around the country peaks annually.

We may not be anywhere near the massive numbers associated with the annual Chinese Spring Festival for instance, but we still have our own logistical nightmares.

You can’t just shrug aside the fact that the annual Spring Festival is arguably the world’s largest movement of humanity and the largest seasonal migration on the planet.

There is more than 4000 years of history tightly linked to it.

No matter where they are, Chinese people will try to return home for a family reunion, making this a massive migration of humans on trains, buses, aircraft and cars across China and throughout the world.

China’s transport ministry estimated travellers made about three billion trips during the festival last year for instance.

China braced itself for an estimated 2.91 billion passengers who made the journey home in January that year.

Figures from this annual mass migration are staggering.

Train tickets for instance for travellers within China sold at a rate of 1000 per second at one stage.

While the movement here at home is on a smaller scale, we still have large groups of people moving around the country.

Many people will visit family and friends around the country.

With children on their annual school holidays, families are expected to take time out for holidays, picnics and to attend family functions away from home.

This is also an opportunity for some families to organise functions, from weddings to fundraising for special projects, and to visit villages for traditional events.

The festive season cuts through every imaginary demarcation line in our nation because Fijians have many reasons to celebrate.

As we look forward to our trips, we should factor in safety issues.

Let’s not forget though that we are well into the cyclone season.

This calls for vigilance.

Keep a tab on the weather.

So as we look forward with great excitement to the festivities ahead of us, let’s do the wise thing and plan our journeys well.

Let’s plan to arrive at our various destinations on time and alive.

Let’s plan to celebrate with our family and loved ones.

Array
(
    [post_type] => post
    [post_status] => publish
    [orderby] => date
    [order] => DESC
    [update_post_term_cache] => 
    [update_post_meta_cache] => 
    [cache_results] => 
    [category__in] => 1
    [posts_per_page] => 4
    [offset] => 0
    [no_found_rows] => 1
    [date_query] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [after] => Array
                        (
                            [year] => 2023
                            [month] => 12
                            [day] => 19
                        )

                    [inclusive] => 1
                )

        )

)