Chinese Holidays/work days

Tal

One of the great joys of life in China. (Irony.)

Luckily for me I am seldom asked to work these absurd 'holiday relocation' weekends. I absolutely do not envy you guys in Shanghai and elsewhere who get dragged in for a 9-day working week just to make up for a day or two off for 中秋节 or whatever.

suxiaoya

I am still in denial that I am in the office on a Sunday... ridiculous. The only thing keeping me going is that I have a trip to Yangshuo planned for 中秋节 (exciting!). Plus, of course - ahem - every day at ChinesePod is like a holiday ;-)

go_manly

Is it the law that you must work on these days. What would happen if CPod officialdom simply said 'don't come in' ?

RJ

Bob, they get extra days off but if they dont work the make-up days on the weekend, they dont get paid. Basically you are moving the weekend next to a holiday to create several days off in a row. We tend to put all govt holidays on Mondays for the same reason.

go_manly

But isn't it the boss's choice about whether or not to pay someone. Can't a particular company decide that its employees deserve more paid holidays than the officially sanctioned quota?

bababardwan

thanks johnb,

that's exactly what I had in mind, setting out not only the holidays but the work days:

六、中秋节：9月22日至24日放假调休，共3天。9月19日（星期日）、25日（星期六）上班。

..I guess there must be ways of disseminating the info from there other than a billion Chinese hitting that site..like the papers, for example?..or the employers/company heads.

Joachim

Sure: every Day is like Sunday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW9MlEFwdNc

bodawei

johnb

Interesting, I was not aware of this - I have just patiently waited until the last minute for the employer to publish details of holiday arrangements. They usually say they don't know until the last minute, so they are waiting for the State Council.

It is quite ridiculously late - once early in our lives here we were sitting at the airport waiting for takeoff when the boss rang my wife saying she had to work 'Sunday'. Sorry - too late, can't hear properly, plane taxiing.

Actually we need to be clear here - for official Public Holidays you do not do make-up days. It is the other days added to the Public Holiday that you are asked to make-up for. So in reference to 中秋节 - no one has to do a make-up day for Wednesday 22 September, because that is an official public holiday. The make-up for Thursday is the previous Sunday (today), and the make-up for Friday is the following Saturday.

It is a bit confusing - you have official public holidays, you have the additional days (presumably decided by the State Council), then your employer can decide on even further additional days - for which make-up days are definitely required. Our university has added a day, presumably for their own benefit, or because they think lots of students will take it off anyway.

Oh .. and yesterday I received a call from my boss, asking me if I knew that I had to work today. I was tempted to say, 'Oh, I didn't realise; I'm actually in Shanghai'. That was my official notice - you have to keep your nose to the ground.

bababardwan

I suppose this classic song:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTUxOTQ5MDg0.html

becomes Sunday I've got "Wednesday On My Mind"

。。我希望今天没有人唠叨你

RJ

You mean cpod? hehe. Yes, I suppose its possible. When pigs fly and hell feezes and all that other good stuff. Didnt we just have a discussion like this?

johnb

Of course... like most countries (well, the US at least, but I think most other countries have their holidays legislated like this), the legal holidays denote what's protected by the government, and (in theory at least) employers have to either give their employees those days off, or pay hefty overtime bonuses.

Apparently, if I'm interpreting RJBerki's sarcasm correctly, we're getting screwed over here :), but like most people we get legal holidays off, and work the rest.

johnb

True, we are only making up the "extra" days, though when they're grouped together like that they don't really feel all that "extra."

When I worked at a university they were always really late in telling us the schedule as well. To some extent it's the State Council being slow's fault (especially if you're trying to really plan ahead), but it was also partially because the university was fantastically bad at planning everything. :)

johnb

Yeah, the information is distributed pretty widely. Most companies (including ChinesePod) will send an email to employees at least several weeks in advance (we got ours around the middle of August, IIRC) with the details, and I'm sure the schedule is published in newspapers, etc.

One thing that's interesting, though, is that the holiday schedule doesn't apply to a lot of people. Most public/customer facing roles have to work, and vast numbers of migrant workers, etc. probably won't get any time off. The holiday is mostly enjoyed by a relatively thin slice of middle class workers.

bodawei

'fantastically bad at planning everything.'

It certainly seems that way. 'The future is un-knowable' could be used as an excuse. I haven't got to the bottom of it. My boss can organise an overseas trip - that takes some planning. But I don't want to complain, not only because someone may be watching. ;) I also don't want to complain because I love my job - plenty opportunities to learn & practice Chinese.

bababardwan

thanks johnb. Interesting. When you say:

"the holiday schedule doesn't apply to a lot of people"

..are you now specifically referring to 中秋节？

...because I was under the impression with some of the special holidays there was this mass movement of people back to their hometowns and that the vast majority did get a holiday. If I'm right, which holidays fit that category? [doesn't golden week and new year fit that bill?]

johnb

That's mostly Chinese New Year. There are a lot of people travelling on the other holidays, but it's mostly middle class white collar workers. The mass human migration that always generates such impressive sounding statistics is the 春运 rush.

bababardwan

thanks mate for clarifying that.