Playday

Fifteen-year-old Xiao Peng was not crazy about China's decision to implement a five-and-a-half-day beginning in May 1994.

Under the new national plan, his middle school and other public institutions throughout the country had alternating five-day, six-day weeks to adjust for the half-day. Although he loved having the extra day off every two weeks, it was a pain to keep track of the alternating timetable.

The five-day, six-day schedule lasted for a year until May 1995 when the government approved the full two-day weekend and in 1999 established three week-long national holidays (or "Golden Weeks").

The holiday policy was instituted in an effort to boost domestic demand, stimulate consumption, and restructure the economy. And the "golden" label came from the fact that long holiday periods are usually a "golden" time for the economy.

The first Golden Week of each year is the Spring Festival and it starts on the Chinese Lunar New Year - which falls in late January or early February each year. The second Golden Week begins on May 1, Labor Day. The last Golden Week falls on October 1, China's National Day.

Since then, the average Chinese worker has enjoyed almost the same number of days off work as many of their counterparts in developed countries, with more than 110 leisure days a year.

Taking a third of the year off work has changed Chinese lifestyles. More ordinary Chinese like Xiao, now a white-collar worker in Beijing, are now adept at managing their weekends and long holidays.

"I've joined a club of young adults. We spend the weekends driving to the suburbs for barbecues and other activities," Xiao says.

Such entertainment and leisure was unimaginable for Xiao's father's generation in their 30s or 40s when they had to spend treasured Sundays, the only day off, doing housework and resting.

Xiao's neighbor, Li Mengqun, chooses to "recharge" herself on weekends.

"I graduated from university in 2003 with a bachelor degree, but I soon found it was a must to update my knowledge," she says. The 27-year-old woman began taking a weekend course in human resources at Renmin University this year. If she finishes all the courses she will get a master's degree in two years.

Other popular weekend courses and training also range from foreign languages, computer skills and professional techniques to ikebana and bartending.

To some extent, the fever for "recharging" on weekends has promoted growth in the country's training market. Reports said that there are around 50,000 English language-training institutions across the country.

Gyms and shopping malls have also mushroomed in major cities as a result. Many Chinese, who do not choose to study or travel on the weekend, prefer to do sports or go shopping one day and take a rest another.

If a longer weekend gives people in China, a country that holds diligence and hard work in the highest esteem, more time to go shopping, study and amuse themselves, the Golden Week holidays made them learn to relax, travel and loosen their wallets.

Although the holidays were designed to offset impacts from the Southeast Asian economic crisis in 1997 by stimulating domestic demand, people's fervor for it still exceeded the government's expectations.

The country was astonished to see Chinese tourists take 28 million trips while spending 14.1 billion yuan during the first Golden Week in October of 1999. A larger growth was seen a year later when 59.8 million people took trips during the National Day holiday in 2000, while total revenue from tourism reached 23 billion yuan.

In nearly 10 years, diverse forms of tourism have been promoted by people's growing enthusiasm for traveling on weekends and holidays.

In villages around major cities a one- or two-day trip nicknamed the "joyful farmer's house" has prospered in recent years, with city dwellers going to the countryside on weekends to soak up the scenery and chow down on local fare and delicacies.

As train speeds increase and more new flights open, many Chinese also now enjoy setting off on a Friday evening and returning on Monday morning or Sunday night.

In the 20th Golden Week in May 2007, a record 179 million people took trips to the countryside or abroad and poured 73.6 billion yuan into the tourism coffers.

Last year, the number of outbound mainland tourists reached over 50 million, the largest number in Asia. But in 1997, applying for a passport was a major undertaking, let alone traveling abroad.

The forecast from the World Travel Fair 2007 predicts that in 2020 China will be the world's fourth largest tourist source and in 15 years about 100 million Chinese tourists will travel abroad annually.

Tourism is obviously one of the industries that benefits the most from weekends and Golden Weeks, but not all.

People will spend one hour for family time or rest and three for shopping and tourism for every four hours reduced from their working time, calculates Chen Xiongzhang, a professor with Guangxi Normal University.

According to statistics from the National Holiday Office, a government agency established for Golden Week holidays, by May 2007, 20 Golden Week holidays had seen 1.81 billion people spend an accumulated tourism income of 744 billion yuan.

China Unionpay, a national bank card network operator, found that consumers spent 29.4 billion yuan with their bank cards during Spring Festival holiday in 2008.

Based on the calculations of the World Tourism Organization: a 1 yuan direct income from tourism means 4.3 yuan for the overall national economy. That is to say the Golden Week holidays have yielded at least 3.2 trillion yuan in the country.

It might be hard to give an exact figure for the overall income from two-day weekends, but the figure is estimated to be up to over 2 trillion yuan.

Leisure's price

However, as the number of tourists expands annually, the Golden Weeks are also becoming a headache for many people. The country's transportation infrastructure, notably train, air and bus routes, is strained and ticket prices skyrocket in the face of overwhelming demands by travelers trying to return to their hometowns and villages.

During the May Day holiday last year, sightseeing in Beijing was hot and sticky as temperatures topped 30 the highest in 40 years for that time of year.

The Summer Palace, a former imperial garden and Beijing's largest park, received 280,000 visitors between May 1 and 4; the Forbidden City received a record 114,800 people on May 2 alone; about 73,000 people a day visited the Badaling section of the Great Wall.

The Quanjude Group, a restaurant chain known for its Peking roast duck and a key stop-off point for first-time visitors, sold about 20,000 ducks in the first three days of the Golden Week. More than 60,000 diners ate at its restaurants between May 1 and 3, spending 12 million yuan.

Beijing buses and subway carried 12 million passengers on the first day of the May holiday alone.

Even the 11 giant pandas at the Beijing Zoo reportedly had to work to 6:30 pm, 30 minutes later than usual, to make the huge number of visitors (100,000 daily on average) happy.

Tourists complained they saw more people than sights and many swore they would rather stay at home than travel under such conditions again.

After about a year of research, the government announced an adjustment to the holidays.

The big change came with the shortening of the original May Day holiday. From 1999 to 2007 it had been three days. Beginning this year it is one day.

Traditional one-day holidays - Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon-Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival that have been public holidays in Hong Kong and Taiwan all along, but not on the mainland - were designated as public holidays.

New Year's Day remains a one-day holiday. The Spring Festival keeps three days and two weekends, but the starting time has been adjusted from lunar New Year's Day to lunar New Year's Eve and National Day also remains a three-day holiday, plus two weekends.

During May Day holiday this year, the first shortened Golden Week, a total of 8.94 million people visited 119 designated tourist spots around the country from May 1 to May 3, 24.45 percent down from the same period last year.

Long-distance tours fell sharply despite an increase in short and mid-distance traveling to large cities and neighboring scenic spots, according to the authorities, which didn't give detailed numbers.

Reportedly small tourist groups such as families and friends rose by a big margin while family cars became the predominant form of transportation rather than planes, trains and buses.

According to a survey conducted before the holiday among 1,000 citizens in 10 major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xi'an, 44 percent of the respondents said they would like to "make a trip", mostly to nearby suburbs.

Among those who did not plan to travel, 60 percent chose to shop in their city. "Visiting relatives or friends" and "watching live performances or movies" were the next most popular choices, while others said they would just relax at home.

The shortened May Day holiday also aroused concerns of whether the National Day holiday this year will be even more crowded than it already is.

China also began to entitle its employees to paid holidays of five to 15 days off a year in addition to national holidays and weekends.

"A shortened May Day holiday has been effective in solving the problem (of an overused transportation infrastructure) but the implementation of paid holiday policies should meet China's growing demand for tourism," says Chen Xiaobin, general manger of the Beijing-based Caissa Travel.

Many are not sure about whether the paid holiday system can be fully realized or not. As competition for employment is fierce today, employers are not encouraging paid holidays and the majority of employees dare not press for them.

But as China's economy continues to grow and mature, its working hours will be reduced and Golden Weeks will be less necessary.

(China Daily 09/22/2008 page2)