Have You Got a Ticket?

The Chinese New Year is approaching, and millions of Chinese people are going back home to have a family reunio, which makes it extremely difficult to get a ticket. In this situation, people even have a new way of greeting each other: 你买到票了吗？(Have you got a ticket?

          

             jīn nián nǐ dǎ suàn huí lǎo jiā guò nián ma
Simon: 今年你打算回老家过年吗？
            Are you going back to your hometown to celebrate the Spring Festival?

                   chūn yùn rén tài duō le bù zhī dào néng bù néng mǎi dào piào
 Xiao Lin: 春运人太多了，不知道能不能买到票。
                   There are too many people during the travel season,
                    and I am not sure whether I could get a ticket.

              wèi shén me búshìshì wǎng shàng de mǎi piào shén qì ne tīng shuō hěn huǒ de
Simon: 为什么不试试网上的买票神器呢，听说很火的。
              Why not try this must-have app on the Internet for purchasing tickets.
               I heard it is popular.

                hǎo nà wǒ yě pèng pèng yùn qìba
 Xiao Lin: 好，那我也碰碰运气吧。
                OK then, I will give it a try.

年(nián), which in modern Chinese solely means “year”, was originally the name of a monster beast that started to prey on people the night before the beginning of a Lunar new year. The Chinese phrase 过年(guò nián), literally meaning "the passing of the beast", therefore refers to "celebrating the Chinese New Year".

春运(chūn yùn) is the combination of 春(Spring, short for “Spring Festival”) and 运(transportation). It refers to the Spring Festival travel season, a period around the Chinese New Year that has an extremely high traffic load. It is sometimes called the world's largest human migration. It usually begins 15 days before the Lunar New Year's Day and lasts for around 40 days.

神器(shén qì) is a buzzword that is commonly used among young people. 神 means "supernatural; magical", and 器 is "implement; utensil; organ; ware". Here it means a kind of application available on the Internet to help people purchase a ticket in a more efficient way. "火", generally meaning "fire", has different meanings in different circumstances. For instance, "发火"(lose one's temper), "生意红火"(The business is brisk), and here it is used to describe the popularity of the application.