CHINESE New Year can put a completely different face upon a city like Shanghai, with its floating population of about 5 million, at least for a short time. Less-crowded streets and fewer casual workers ?such as street cleaners and maids ?influence the daily lives of the people who stay in town for the holiday.

The Spring Festival is the biggest festival for family reunions, drawing many of the floating population and workers to their homes in other provinces.

According to a source of the Traffic & Patrol Police General Brigade of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau, there are 40 per cent fewer automobiles on city streets during the festival than on other days of the year. This means that about two-thirds of traffic policemen can take their own holidays during the festival.

¡°Traffic accidents during the festival are mainly caused by drunk people driving cars,?the source said.

Public transportation remains busy during the period, said an employee of the metro, but she added that on the basis of her previous experience, few people should be expected in the system on Lunar New Year¡¯s Eve itself. But the first day of the new year will see crowds as people begin making the traditional visits to relatives and friends.

In order to keep the city running well, some migrant workers have to sacrifice their holiday visits to hometowns and families.

The Household Services Association recently hired 40 maids from East China¡¯s Anhui Province to fill slots among its pool of servants. Of 100 candidates, only 40 passed the interview and health examination.

¡°The association has several thousand maids but 70 per cent of them have gone back to their hometowns during the festival,?said Zhou Juemin, head of the association. ¡°That caused great inconvenience for local families. We have received many calls recently for new maids.?

After a week of training, the 40 new maids have been assigned to local families, but there are still not enough to fill the demand.

¡°It¡¯s an inconvenience for me to do the housework when the maid is gone, especially when I see piles of unwashed bowls,?said a local Yang Lin.

In order to keep the city clean, street cleaners must remain on the job during the public holiday.

One sanitation worker, surnamed Du, has been able to return to her hometown to see her child and family for the first Spring Festival in three years.

Du is responsible for cleaning a neighbourhood in the Pudong New Area and she has found someone ?from the village where her family lives in Jiangsu Province ?who will take her place during the holiday. In order not to lose her daily income of 18 yuan (US$2), Du had to give up family reunions during the last three Chinese New Years.

Just outside the same community, on Rushan Lu, another street cleaner, surnamed Wang, was less lucky than Du. But her husband, also a sanitation worker, has brought their children to Shanghai so the whole family can spend the Spring Festival together.

¡°It¡¯s hard to find a job in Shanghai. I don¡¯t want to lose it,?Wang said.

Most of the city¡¯s small snack shops operated by migrants will be shut down during the holiday and are not expected to reopen until the 6th day of the Chinese lunar new year, when the city shifts back to normal from the festival mentality.

Fewer beggars are seen on the streets until the end of January because many of them are able to return to their villages and hometowns. The exceptions are the young, physically disabled beggars who crawl along the sidewalk with their legs bound to their shoulders.

¡°There will be more of them coming out during the Spring Festival because they will have ¡®good business?then,?a vendor selling phone cards said. People are more willing to give them money during the New Year holiday.

Those beggars are part of a group. Most were abducted at a young age, and a master of the group watches them and takes their ¡°income?every day.

An official of the city¡¯s Collecting Post, an organization that houses vagrants and beggars, told the Shanghai Star that the centre has seen more arrivals in the period leading up to the festival.

¡°They also want the feeling of being at home during the Spring Festival,?said the official, surnamed Shi.