In recent years, with China changing from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial society, rural areas are finding themselves with an excess of farmers.

Many farmers had little choice but to leave their home areas and seek their fortune in industrial areas such as Guangdong province. But regardless of where they work, every year they rush back home to spend the Spring Festival with their families.

The "Beijing News" says this mass exodus shows their devotion to their home provinces. The government should learn valuable lessons from this, and move to establish more employment opportunities in rural areas.

The article also says that China's growing urban-rural income gap stretched even further last year. The difference between average incomes of rural and urban workers exceeded 10,000 yuan, or 1,460 U.S. dollars.

At a psychological level, this imbalance carries a heavy social cost, with 250,000 people in rural areas attempting suicide each year from economic-related problems.

The article concludes by suggesting the government increase spending on the modernization drive in rural areas to improve the infrastructure and offer famers more economic opportunity.