China's New Year getaway: The stories behind the mass movement of people

An estimated 2.8 billion trips are completed by family members heading home from wherever work has taken them, something akin to Thanksgiving in the US

(Yuyang Liu)

Chinese New Year isn't just about giant animatronic dragons processing through city streets packed with revellers.

In China itself it's a time of mass movement, as an estimated 2.8 billion trips are completed by family members heading home from wherever work has taken them, something akin to Thanksgiving in the US.

The railway station at Guangzhou – a huge metropolis in the south of the country, opposite Hong Kong – is one of the busiest transport hubs.

Photographer Yuyang Liu, a recent winner of the prestigious Ian Parry award, chose the station for a project in which he photographed travellers and asked them about their journeys, their lives, and the years they were looking back on.