The arrival of China's new holiday system will see an end to the country's May Day golden week and the addition of three traditional festivals, the Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival, as public holidays.

The change has been a hot topic of discussion in recent months, with people asking why it was done and whether other festivals might be added to the country's national holidays. With these questions in mind, Beijing Review interviewed Li Hanqiu, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former Director of the Publicity Department of the China Peasants and Workers' Democratic Party, who participated in the process of developing the new holiday system.

Beijing Review: When did you realize there were problems with the "golden week" holiday?

Li Hanqiu: The setting of holidays should comply with economic development and when not, there will definitely be some problems. I started to notice the problems with golden weeks in 2005. The weeklong holidays, in the long run, are not beneficial, not only for the economy, but also for the environment. Lots of people just spend the whole week hurrying to see scenery, to be tourists, so it is not a rest at all. It is far away from the original intention of setting a long holiday and damaging to the environment.

You were one of the first people to suggest setting traditional festivals as public holidays. Next year, three traditional festivals will be on the list of public holidays, and the golden week of May Day will be cancelled. Are other traditional festivals likely to be listed as the public holidays in the future, too?

Now, when people talk about May Day and National Day, they almost forget the original meaning of them. May Day's meaning as a festival is fading. May 4th is Youth Day, but as it is included in the golden week of May Day, it is losing its original influence. That is why we decided to cancel the weeklong May Day holiday and spare three days separately for traditional festivals. In the long run, I think it will also happen to the golden week of the National Day.

I put forward the idea of setting traditional festivals as public holidays as early as in 2003, and in the following years I attended discussions on the holiday system reform several times. Traditional festivals are live cultures of China, and they represent the national identity of the Chinese people. That is why we should attach importance to traditional festivals.

But for those people who live far away from their hometowns, the canceling of the golden week of May Day will reduce their opportunities to go back home, so we also set the paid vacation system.

Actually the paid vacation system was set as early as in 1991, but it was not well implemented. What will the government do this time to ensure this system is well implemented?

The paid vacation system is to protect the legal rights of workers, and a lot of countries in the world adopt the system. People can freely choose when to take the vacation.

It is a new system, not only for the people, but also for the government. It will take the government some time to find some creative ways to cope with the system, so we cannot demand the government practices it perfectly from the beginning. It will take some time, but the future is promising.

For some private companies that would not provide the mandatory paid vacation for their employees, we cannot say we can totally avoid this problem now. It is impossible for the government to fully solve this problem since the system has just been set up. The government will take some flexible measures to deal with it. And also we should call on the Labor Union and some other non-governmental organizations to help deal with it.

At the same time, we will allow private enterprises to take flexible measures to realize paid vacations. For example, when a business is really very busy and it is impossible to have paid vacations, the company should give compensation for this, or let the workers accumulate the vacation for two or three years and then take it together. Alternatively they could organize the workers to travel together once a year.

What do you think will be the future picture of China's holiday system?

As a country with a long and rich history, China should explore its traditions more. Apart from traditional festivals, I also call for holidays with themes. For China, some festivals are quite comprehensive without specific themes. This makes people just focus on a "festival," but not "what" festival. Actually, we have a lot to be remembered. For example, Confucius is a world famous educator; we can set his birthday, September 28, as Teachers' Day. Traditional festivals, themed festivals, and paid vacations will make up China's future holiday system.