The National Development and Reform Commission published a plan to change China's golden week holiday system on November 9. The change sees the end of the three-day May Day holiday and the creation of three single-day holidays that fall on traditional Chinese festivals--the Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival. One day off work remains on May Day.

The change increases the number of non-working days per year from 114 to 115. In addition, according to a newly issued paid vacation plan, workers who remain in the same company for more than one year should enjoy a paid vacation, the length of which varies depending on how long they have been in the job. From one to 10 years will entitle employees to five days of paid vacation a year, 10 to 20 years will entitle employees to 10 days off, and more than 20 years will entitle employees to 15 days.

Crammed trains

According to a recent online survey, more than half of the people questioned wanted a change to the golden week system. May Day had become a stressful time for many, with endless queues to buy train tickets and crammed trains making travel difficult. Competition for tickets was so fierce that in some cases people queued overnight for them. Golden weeks, which were intended to allow people to visit family, had become a time of transportation nightmares, damage to scenic spots and price hikes.

For Zhang Wei, a civil servant at a public institution in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province, the end of the May Day golden week is a relief. Zhang is the main breadwinner in his family, who looks after his father with chronic heart problems and a son in elementary school.

"The weeklong May Day holiday makes no sense to me at all," he said. "I spent almost every golden week with my family, taking care of my father and my son. It is far from a rest for me actually."

There have been three golden weeks a year, including May Day, National Day and Spring Festival. The new plan divides the three into six with the intention of taking pressure off China's transport system and people.

Tough competition

Although paid vacation time has now been set out under law, many people remain concerned that they will not be given time off work. Zhang said that although the public institution he works for does not force employees to work overtime, work pressure means they have to. "Working extra hours has already become common in society. Almost everybody is working overtime. In my family, my wife and I both work extra hours," he said.

Zhang's wife is a sales manager and her income is decided by sales results. Her basic income is just 800 yuan ($108) per month and she cannot afford to take vacations as this means she will earn less money.

According to the law, every citizen should receive 114 days off every year. But according to a survey conducted in June 2007 by Horizon Research Consultancy Group on people living in 10 cities across China, only 69.7 percent of workers take all of the weeklong holidays. Just 16.3 percent of people surveyed took half of the holidays, and 8.4 percent received no days off, working even on their weekends.

The holiday system is well implemented in governmental departments and state-owned companies. However, for workers in privately-run companies, there are many problems in ensuring they get time off. Tough competition means the owners of private companies are often themselves under pressure and reluctant to give their employees time off as it translates into economic losses.

A worker from the human resources department of one private company, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that in most private companies, the legal holidays serve as a reward for only the top 10 percent of workers. For migrant workers and low-income citizens in China's cities, time off is nothing but a dream.

According to a recent survey, 70 percent of employees choose not to take paid vacations. This is mainly because if they take the vacation time they risk losing their jobs.

Another obstacle facing the new holiday system is lack of knowledge. Many people do not know their legal right. According to Wang Lixin, who works for a law agency in Beijing, public awareness has to be raised.

There are people against the new system. Shu Shengxiang is an accountant in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province. He said that before the government can ensure the new holiday system works it should not have ended the May Day golden week as this could lead to people losing holiday time. "Golden weeks at least provide people with a stable long holiday, but paid vacations cannot. For the increasing number of migrant workers, how will they get a long holiday?"

Zhang Juan, an announcer for a radio station in Beijing, said although golden weeks caused problems she still feels it was a pity to cancel them. "I just stay home during golden weeks for a good rest. I hope the golden weeks can still exist, with some other new holidays added in," she said.

Wang Yanyong, Director of the Department of Tourism Management of Beijing Jiaotong University, thinks that it was a wrong decision to cancel the May Day golden week as May is the best season for traveling. "We cannot only focus on the problems brought out by golden weeks, and turn a blind eye to the unique relaxing value of it," he said

Dissent against the holiday reform has been widespread on the Internet, where people said that the National Day and Spring Festival holidays would now see even larger than normal numbers of travellers. Others criticized the changes for making it more difficult for migrant workers to visit their families.

Actually, the idea of paid vacations is not new in China. It was written in an official document released by the State Council on workers' vacation regulations as early as 1991, but at that time it was applied to only a fraction of people. The Labor Law, which was put into effect on January 1, 1995, also put the regulation of paid vacations in the Article 45, saying, "The state shall practice a system of annual vacation with pay. Laborers who have kept working for one year and more shall be entitled to annual vacation with pay. Concrete measures shall be formulated by the State Council." But no detailed measures came out afterwards, so paid vacations were regarded as just words on paper and nothing in practice.

The new law will take time to work and ending the May Day golden week will be unpopular with some, as change always is, but adding legal force to the paid vacation plan should ultimately be popular among Chinese workers.