A Chinese government panel announced plans on Friday to revamp the holiday schedule to re-emphasize traditional festivals at the expense of the Marxist May Day celebration.

One of the continuing confusions I have with China is the holiday schedule.¹ I have always wondered how much money and productivity is lost during the annual holidays breaks for National Day, New Years, Spring Festival and May Day. During these periods, China literally stops in business terms (and travel is virtually impossible without some advanced planning or a sizable cash reserve to pay for first-class seats.) My confusion here is how can China survive when the rest of the World keeps humming along in China’s absence. Its like those Life Takes Visa commercials were all is going smoothly until someone decides to pay with cash and then everything gets gummed up. The effects must be similar with China on the holidays. It seems that the CCP agrees but, according to my reading of the article, their re-setting of the holiday schedule doesn’t seem to change anything all that much. I’ve spoken to many Chinese and most agree that the long holidays are not really as enjoyable as one would think. This is because you’re either fighting to get home or fighting to get back; transportation and hotels jack prices up because they know they can and you either have to work longer prior to the break or immediately after. My simple suggestion would be to scrap the long holidays for all except Spring Festival. This would bring them more in line to the World schedule and yet still keep the most traditional and family-oriented holiday intact,

China Juggles Tombs, Dragon Boats and Marx

1. I think it is also interesting to find that more young and urban Chinese are informally adopting Western holidays such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day and even Halloween.