Long Weekend

In Taiwan, unlike the United States, most holidays are on the same date every year, rather than moving it to a convenient Friday or Monday. The ones that are not on the same date every year are dictated by the lunar calendar. So, Lunar New Year may be January 21 one year, and February 13 the next year. And so on.

Unfortunately, most of the holidays this year have fallen on a Saturday or Sunday. And so we just don't get them. I've been pretty bitter about it this year, because there are only about 5 national holidays, and at least 3 of them have been on the weekend.

The Vatican is one of the two dozen or so countries that maintains full diplomatic ties with Taiwan. (For the record, the others are poor Central American and African countries.) A few months ago, a Vatican official was in Taiwan, and he suggested that they make Christmas a holiday. It used to be a holiday (Constitution Day fell on Dec. 25), but they cancelled it when the workweek was supposedly shortened from 48 to 44 hours. The Taiwanese official replied that another holiday was not necessary, since workers already get 2 days off every other week. In the mysteries of the Chinese language, every Saturday or Sunday is a "holiday," so we get over 100 "holidays" a year. And they think that's enough.

We did have a real "holiday" this week. But that excuse about the holidays is just shit. What it boils down to is that all the politicians are also a bunch of money-grubbing businessmen who would rather die than pay a few hours of overtime.

The Taiwanese think they're so hard-working. But it's really just that they're always at work. Of course they get a lot done.