October Holiday
As I prepare to head back to work this afternoon, I have to be a bit jealous of my friends in China.
For those of you not familiar with Chinese holidays, this week is October Holiday in honor of the founding of the People's Republic on Oct. 1, 1949.
Since 2000, the first week of May and October have been called "Golden Weeks" because the previous and following weekends have been adjusted to create a seven-day holiday week for almost all of China's 1.4 billion people. (If that's unclear to those of you in the U.S., check out Wikipedia's explanation for it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China especially the calendars at the bottom of the page.)
During our two years in China, we only traveled during one Golden Week (to Suzhou during May Holiday 2005), because it's less than convenient to try to travel at the same time as about 1 billion of your closest friends.
This idea of moving weekends is hard for most Americans to understand until they actually see it happen. In fact, in the weeks leading up to the Golden Weeks, there is often some confusion until the central government announces exactly how the days will be rearranged each time.
So here's a question for my readers in China: How are you spending your October Holiday?
posted by Ryan @ 12:04 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
All I can say is YES! Sign me up for this. We get so much stuff from China, why not superholidays?
By the way this is Rob, not some wierdo-freak scopin' your blog and stalking you. Or watching you sleep. Or anything creepy like that. And no I am not behind you right now. Looked didn't you? lol
At work I have a customer who has a customer in Beijing that's having some e-mail trouble that I've been helping to troubleshoot. We haven't heard from him since Thursday and didn't know why. It all makes sense now.
OMG. Rob! Wow, it's been a while.
Rob: With your wacky resume, a sojurn to China would fit right in. But did I mention that you have to work a Saturday and a Sunday to make up for part of the holiday?
Great to hear from you, by the way. Still teaching?
This week is also a big holiday in Germany. Oct 3 celebrates when the East and West again became one country.
They don't make quite as much of it as in China, and it's actually somewhat controversial.
They don't make as much of it in China? Are you serious? That's not the way it is in Wuhan anyway. The traffic has been absolutely horrible. All 1.2 billion people have come out of the wordwork. Cooks, be glad you're not here on the 1st or 7th - nasty, nasty, traffic.
Jingjing and I moved all of her stuff in. We also bought some kitchen stuff for our extremely "spacious" kitchen. That's about it. After the wedding, we'll be heading to Hainan, so we didn't spend our dime over the holiday. I managed Jia Jun to give me a week off after the wedding. I only had to sell a kidney to do so.
Vince: Great to hear from you and see you starting your own English blog!
Kyle: I remember what the first and lasts days of the holiday were in like in Wuhan. Not that the 4106 was enjoyable any day, but that was the worst. You couldn't even squeeze on the bus!
Also, I think you misread Joel's comment. He said "They don't make quite as much of it as in China," meaning Germany doesn't make as big of a deal of their current holiday as China does.
thank you for your email,Mr Cook,I'm Karen.today I just read it,because I went home for the "Golden week" holiday:)
now you know how I spend my holiday.I often think: if I began to work, I would have little time to see my mum and my sisters,right? family is the most important for us.
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