A source of light

There seems to still be some confusion about the new Chinese national holiday dates.

Chinese holidays run differently from the West in that the weekend preceding or following (generally preceding) a holiday is a work day. The two weekend break days are then combined with the holiday break; thus, adding two extra days to each holiday resulting in two five-day holidays and five three-day holidays.

The original dates given count the two extra days; however, remember that the weekend before or after (generally before) is still a work and school day.

This system is invariably confusing to westerners in China.

Below is the latest list of official required holidays, which we have sourced from published central government materials:

Western New Year (Yuandan)
1 day vacation (1-Jan-2008)

Chinese New Year (Chunjie)
3 days vacation (6-Feb-2008 to 8-Feb-2008)

Grave Sweeping Day (Qingmingjie)
1 day vacation (4-Apr-2008

International Socialist Workers’ Day (Wuyi/Laodongjie)
1 day vacation (May-1-2008)

Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwujie)
1 day vacation (June-8-2008)

Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhongqiujie)
1 day vacation (Sep-14-2008)

China National Day (Shiyi/Guoqingjie)
3 days vacation (Oct-1-2008 to Oct-3-2008)

According to the new Chinese labour law, whether or not an employer shifts the weekend break to the holiday break and which days and which weekend are all up to the employer’s discretion. However, the days listed before are the days recommended by the government and the schedule all schools in the country will follow (with the exception of the New Year where the government made a sudden change in the school break dates to Dec 31, Jan 1, 2).

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 11:00 am and is filed under HR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.