Thursday, December 10, 2009

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It's time for curmudgeon-Micah again: the General Office of the State Council just released the schedule of national holidays for 2010 (as usual, at the last minute).

  1. 一、元旦:1月1日至3日放假公休,共3天。
  2. 二、春节:2月13日至19日放假调休,共7天。2月20日(星期六)、21日(星期日)上班。
  3. 三、清明节:4月3日至5日放假公休,共3天。
  4. 四、劳动节:5月1日至3日放假公休,共3天。
  5. 五、端午节:6月14日至16日放假调休,共3天。6月12日(星期六)、13日(星期日)上班。
  6. 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。
  7. 七、国庆节:10月1日至7日放假调休,共7天。9月26日(星期日)、10月9日(星期六)上班。

As the chair of the academic calendar committee at my school, each year I look forward to getting my hands on this schedule and how it matches my predictions for the second half of our current academic calendar, as well as how it will affect our planning for the next schoolyear's calendar. And each year I gnash my teeth and stomp my feet at the decision of the State Council regarding the distribution of the days off during the year and/or surrounding the holidays.

Most of the holidays are scheduled in a way that suggests sanity. The Chinese New Year doesn't affect us as the school takes 3/4 weeks off around that period anyway. The Tomb-Sweeping Holiday in April and Int'l Labor Day in May are reasonable 3-day weekends, both taking off a Monday following the weekend. And the National Day vacation in October is back by its lonesome self (it coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival this year) with a similar schedule to this year's, working a Saturday before and a Sunday after to leave a 7-day-long vacation.

As usual, though, this calendar has a couple zingers. The Dragon Boat Festival falls on a Wednesday in June next year, so that State Department has decided that people should work through the previous weekend and take off Monday through Wednesday (see below). On my calendar for the school I had simply made the Wednesday a single day off in the middle of the week; since summer vacation follows just a couple weeks later, we don't really need a 3-day weekend at this point. I'm hoping we won't have to change my original plan.

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Also, the Mid-Autumn festival falls on a Wednesday in late September; this time people are scheduled to work the previous Sunday and following Saturday to take off Wednesday through Friday; yes, this means that vacation ends on Friday, people work Saturday, then take Sunday off before resuming the regular workweek schedule. (see below) Guess how many people are going to be calling in sick on that Saturday! And guess what I'm going to be doing for the school calendar? I don't know yet, but I'm thinking that we don't need a 5-day holiday just 3 weeks into next schoolyear.

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Argh.

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