No more Golden Week by 2009?
The Chinese government is considering scrapping two of China's three "golden weeks". The proposal appears to have been drawn up by domestic tourism experts and if the guidelines are accepted, the weeklong May Day holiday would be shortened to one day and the National Day holiday to two days. Only the Lunar New Year golden week would be preserved. To make up for the lost holidays, three traditional Chinese festivals would be set aside as public holidays. Top contenders include the Mid-Autumn Festival, Lantern Festival, Tomb Sweeping Day, Dragonboat Festival and Chongyang Festival. In addition, compulsory paid vacations may be written into labour law. We think this is just as well because
- We don't get any Golden Week holidays anyways!
- Half of the expatriates we know work through Golden Weeks while everyone else is on holiday!
- Golden Week throngs were never really our idea of fun! Shanghai is crowded enough during normal days.
- Giving people the freedom to choose when to go on holiday sounds like a fab idea to us. At least we can choose to travel at times when airfare prices are not that exorbitantly high!
What does everyone else think?
