I am writing this column during a holiday. This time it is Labour Day, also called the ‘Mayday holiday’ in China, a play of words on emergency. A few weeks ago, we had another holiday: Tomb Sweeping, the equivalent of All Saints’/All Souls’ Day. On this day, everyone sets out to give graves a good cleaning.
All of this may sound like the Chinese have an awful lot of holidays, but it’s all just appearance. On paper, the Labour Day holiday looks rather impressive, running from 1 to 5 May. ‘Nice, five days off’, you might think. But there’s a catch: in return, you have to work on Sunday 28 April and Saturday 11 May, effectively knocking off two of those five holidays.
In fact, it’s merely a swap between weekend days and week days. Add to this that 4 and 5 May fall on a Saturday and Sunday, when the Chinese are free anyway, and you are left with one net holiday day. Wow! One day off sold to you as a five-day holiday!
