The Great China Currents!

Up to the recent past, there was no annual leave system in this country. The people of China has 4 fixed weeks off every year. They are two weeks over Chinese New Year; a week over Labour Day in May; and a week over National Day in Oct. Due to the recent economic developments in various primary and secondary cities, these total shutdowns were deemed as undesirable, and hence adjustments had been made, particularly in major cities.

In the recent years, Chinese New Year holidays has been reduced to a week and the Labour Day and National Day holidays have been reduced to 3 days. In compensation for the reduced period of these traditional holidays, there has been new public holidays being introduced, for e.g. Mid-Autumn (中秋节), 清明节，端午节。

Clever Accounting
Chinese people are so creative! So.. National Day holidays (“十一”黄金周）is supposed to be 1-3 Oct, so technically, it should start on wed through to fri, plus the weekend, it's 5 days long hols. However, in order to still have 1 week off, most companies worked on Sat and Sun before (i.e., 27-28 Sep were working days) and then take the mon and tue (29-30 Sep) off, to make 1 week! Clever right?! I think Singapore should copy this one! Yey!

Change of the Great Currents!
So.. today is the start of the long hols and yesterday was the last day of work prior to the long hols. Typical local activities during such long holidays were to return home (since alot of people work in a different city to where their home is) or to go travelling - domestic or international.

It's what I would call the change of the Great Currents yesterday! Millions of non-Beijingers were getting out of the city and the original Beijingers were getting back into the city! The traffic was a standstill. Took us 30min to move 1 km! From the back of the building to the front of the same building took 30min! Then it was getting very late for Pete to get to golf lessons, so Jason, the driver drop me off somewhere to get a cab to 南锣鼓巷to meet my friend from Hong Kong, who's in Beijing.

My God! There were millions of people around.. and I thought that's because that wholesale market that we were at had just closed for the day. I walked on... against the traffic... thinking that I might get lucky to get a cab. After 20 min, I realised it's not going to happen... cos there were lots of people with big luggage everywhere, trying to grab a cab.

I decided I will walk to the subway station which is about 2-3 km away. I got to the subway.. there were like 2 million people trying to get out. (Dear Singaporeans, think the worst situation at City Hall MRT, when there's NDP at Padang or Chingay or F1 and times 10... hee.. not exaggerating... in fact, maybe a little under) Took 2 stations of train and got out and realised traffic was as bad at 鼓楼area.. and decided that I will walk there.. another 2-3 km! Took me 1hour 45 min to get to my destination... usually it would be 15min car ride. And guess what? Pete was half hour late for golf lesson! It took him 1.5 hours to get home! Usually, it would only take half hour to get home in peak hour traffic situation!

I realise I need to understand what a country with 1.3 billion people mean and that 3 million (I was told) of non-local residents moving with luggages at the same hour cannot be underestimated!

Oh... welcome to China! :)