In terms of Chinese people taking vacations now I just see Chinese people taking longer vacations with their annual leave during the shortened holidays.

J.

There is an important reason (if not the most important one) why China try to move the weekend to form a long holiday break: most people do not have vacations time like westerner. Westerner take vacation when they want and can afford to do so. However, the only chance for most Chinese to take “vacations” is during holiday season.

More and more companies started to offer a few days annually. Both of my sisters work for foreign firms, one has 7 days and the other one has 12 days. When more companies have similar vacation systems like the ones in western world, you probably will see dramatic drop in holiday traffic around new year, 5/1, 10/1.

I need a long break. I fancy trout fishing and camping in Afghanistan but there’s too many land mines of the border between it and China. Also a tourist visa might be too hard to get.

J.

Last job I worked INSISTED on 7 day work weeks, at least 12 hours a day for expats as well as locals.

You were allowed one day off a month to do the HK visa run, but you’d better make up the time. This was for a Chinese-owned factory, working for a Chinese General Manager.

One of our customers, a European company, worked, as far as I can tell, 24/7. They were put out and rather angry that we didn’t work the factory 24/7. Very upset that we took National Day Oct 1st off.

Not sure it has anything to do with culture, the 6-7 day work weeks here in China, nor religion. All to do with the $$$$ (or RMB)

I like where this is going.

The Roman Republic and Empire, like the Etruscans, used a “market week” of eight days (known as the nundinal cycle). From around the 1st century, with the spread of Christianity, the Roman eight-day week was replaced gradually by the seven-day week. Lithuanians used a week of nine days before adopting Christianity.

But here is some interesting information of note for the launch of the 7-day week in the East: The Chinese use of the seven day week (and thus Korean, Japanese, Tibetan, and Vietnamese use) traces back to the 600s CE. The 28 stars were arranged in order of sun, moon, fire, water, wood, gold, earth, and every 7 days were called “qi-yao”. The days were assigned to each of the luminaries, but the week did not affect social life or the official calendar. The law in the Han Dynasty required officials of the empire to rest every 5 days, called “mu”, while it was changed into 10 days in the Tang Dynasty, called “huan” or xún (旬). The 7 days “week” in ancient China is mostly kept in astrological purposes and cited in several Buddhist texts until the Jesuits reintroduced the concept in the 16th century.