More sweat, less fun for China
By Olivia Chung

HONG KONG - China's three "Golden Week" holidays: Lunar Chinese New Year, May 1 Labor Day and the October National Day, are a nationally sanctioned financial plum for the tourism industry at home and abroad. During each of these week-long holidays, trips made Chinese in the mainland and to Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asian countries number in the hundreds of millions.

Now Beijing is considering drastically shortening one of the holidays - the Labor Day holiday, a move that would undoubtedly be a blow to regional tourism, as well as family reunion plans. In effect one of the Golden Week holidays would become a "Golden Day", though without the glow, so perhaps "Brass Day" might be more apt for the revamped China's International Labor Day holiday. To make up for it, however, the central government looks as if it will add three traditional Chinese festival days to its list of statutory holidays.

Indeed, when Beijing put the proposal out for public consideration on the Internet, not only the tourism industry but the general populace were strongly opposed to it. But despite the opposition, it is believed Beijing will go ahead with its plan.

The three Golden Week holidays, first introduced in 1999 as a way to stimulate domestic consumption, have increasingly come under fire for straining China's transport and tourism resources.

During last month's National Day holiday, 146 million Chinese travelled domestically, generating 64.2 billion yuan (US$8.6 billion) in tourism revenue. A record 179 million Chinese holidaymakers were on the move during the Labor Day celebrations this year.

However, the millions of holidaymakers have added great pressure to the transport infrastructure and popular tourist destinations in the form of traffic accidents and fatalities, lowered service quality, jacked-up prices and, of course, pollution.

During this year's Labor Day holiday, visitors reportedly dumped about 20.9 tonnes of rubbish in Beijing's Tiananmen Square every day - about nine times the daily average.

Frustrated at having to endure poor traffic and huge crowds every Golden Week, more mainlanders are opting to stay at home. This has aroused criticism among retail and travel sectors that the holidays are becoming increasingly counter-productive at encouraging spending.

The Chinese government on November 9 announced its draft proposal to reform the three week-long holidays.

The proposal, drafted by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), suggested shortening the May 1 Golden Week from three statutory days (plus a weekend) to one statutory day. In exchange, three traditional festivals - the Ching Ming Festival (Grave-sweeping Day), Chong Yang Festival and Mid-autumn (Moon) Festival - would become statutory holidays. That in fact would increase the total number of statutory holidays in a year to 11 from 10.

The NDRC conducted a massive online poll on the supposedly popular proposal on official and popular portal websites such as People.com.cn, Xinhuanet.com and Sina.com.cn along with a questionnaire.

Also open for public consultation was a plan to give workers paid annual leave after working for the same employer for 12 months. Most mainland workers do not enjoy paid leave and rely on the Golden Weeks for a break from work.

The feedback period ended on November 15 and the new holiday calendar was expected to be implemented as early as next year.

However, a brief look at some online responses to the proposal indicated that a majority of people are opposed to shortening the Labor Day Golden Week.

An Internet user, who did not identify himself, said at the forum of Xinhuanet.com on November 11 that he was strongly against the cancelation of the Golden Week in May.

"My colleagues and I, together with our families, disagree changing the long-week holiday. First, [the proposal] denies people, who work far away from their families, a chance for reunions. Second, the implementation of annual paid leave can hardly be ensured as employers usually attach importance to production. Third, the Lunar New Year holiday is proposed to begin on Lunar New Year's Eve instead of the first day of the Lunar New Year and end a day earlier, it would shorten the break, as currently people do not work on Lunar New Year's Eve ..." he said.

Many of the netizens at the forum of Xinhuanet.com said on November 11 that they believed the government should keep the Golden Week break in May and at the same time introduce the three traditional Chinese festivals as national holidays.

One netizen using the name of "Mountain and Water" said at the chat room of Sina.com.cn on November 13 that "it's better to keep the Golden Week because all employers are forced to abide by the law by giving their men a break".

Another posting by "Lee" said at the Sina.com.cn on November 14 that migrant workers will be the most affected as they will be forced to stay at their workplaces instead of going back their hometowns if the Golden Week holidays are spread out and replaced by individual holidays.

In addition to criticism of supposedly popular holiday adjustment, some even questioned the questionnaire's design, saying it has showed misleading results.

Tang Jun, senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was quoted as saying by China Youth Daily that there were some noticeable flaws in the survey's methodology.

He said the survey could result in insufficient representation as the country's migrant workers, the most hard hit, who hardly have personal computers or are able express their views at Internet cafes.

"[Under the new proposal] they cannot go home in May when they are needed most at harvest time," he said.

Besides, 21 newspapers and one portal website - rednet.cn, on November 14 jointly sent a petition to the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, urging it to keep the Labor Day Golden Week and add three traditional festivals to the list of legal holidays.

Signed by influential newspapers such as the Huaxi Metropolis News and the Yangzi Evening News, the letter said although workers were entitled to paid leave under the Labor Law, some enterprises do not give paid leave because it is not compulsory. Under the uniform arrangement of the Golden Week holidays, everyone would have an equal number of days off. Therefore, they maintained, the May 1 should not be scrapped without the introduction of compulsory paid leave, or a significant number of people would be stripped off the right for time off.

"Those putting forward the shortening of the week-long holiday recognized the transport and scenic spot issues [caused by masses of people traveling during the three week-long holidays], but they did not recognize the special value for family reunions or rest," the letter continued.

Despite the huge outcry, conversely some mainland newspapers reported that 68% of the 1.55 million online participants approved shortening the Labor Day holiday and compensating for it with separate traditional festivals.

Huang Tao, an associate professor of the Renmin University of China, said the shortening of the May 1 Golden Week is a foregone conclusion and is expected to be announced before the next year's Lunar New Year.

"A majority of people support the introduction of traditional festivals, but oppose shortening the May 1 Golden Week," Huang claimed. "It is a contradiction as the two ideas must be implemented simultaneously as there isn't economic support for the co-existence of the two." Huang took part in formulating the draft proposal.

Zhan Miao, from Mi Luo Jiang city of Hunan province, who works as secretary in a Shenzhen computer company, said she supported the spreading the May 1 holidays about and the addition of more traditional festivals.

"I don't think shortening the May 1 Golden Week will place more pressure on the remaining two Golden Weeks as people now usually go back their hometowns during the New Year holidays. Regarding the harvest time, me, as an example, usually ask my parents to employ someone to help instead of me going home to help," she said.

Amy Jiang, business development manager in Shenzhen, echoed Zhan's ideas, saying many friends of hers and she preferred to stay home during the week-long holidays to avoid travel chaos and have trips in the days off she decided.

"Though the initial survey result showed that many oppose the scrapping of the Labor Day Golden Week, I believe the central government made the proposal in order to do it," she said.

Olivia Chung is a senior Asia Times Online reporter.

That's a sacrilage lol..no way..it's like ripping the Cout of China, wo bu zhidao man..

They get people to vote on ebolishing a holiday but nothing else??? weird country.