The holiday that wasn't

It’s that time of year when the weather starts to get a bit cooler and the government changes up the work week for a few holidays. They do this a few times throughout the year and, in a word, it’s so annoying. These next few weeks seem to be even worse.

There’s the Mid-autumn Festival which was on Wednesday (yesterday) and changes every year because the holiday changes according to the lunar calendar. Then there’s the National Day (think Independence Day in China) which is always on Oct 1st. It’s pretty problematic to follow a calendar that changes every year for holidays and combine it with the Western calendar (you know, the one the whole world follows), but I try not to ask why much these days in China.

So the government gives people three days off for Mid-autumn and 7 days for National Day, but then people have to work on the weekends to make up for it - so basically its like having one day off for Mid-autumn and about 5 days for National Day. Last year, luckily the two holidays fell on the same week, but this year, the whole system is really screwed up. Here’s a look at the year’s worth of Chinese holidays and readjustments. Even the Chinese people think its an unnecessary inconvenience.

Luckily (or even more confusing) for me since I work for a newspaper we are able to follow our own schedule. However, this also got screwed up because of lack of planning. I was supposed to have off from Tuesday to Saturday, but of course that was changed (because some people decided to not turn in stories on time). And my weekend turned out to be Thursday and Friday and then I have to work on Saturday through Wednesday. So stupid.

I just try to go with things and not ask why, because asking “why” in China will just make you even more angrier than having to work on a weekend. At least for me, what was supposed to be 5-days off will be three extra days of annual leave I can take at my leisure.