Good luck, national pride: Auspicious red everywhere - Too many darn flags! Boy, am I glad this nonsense is finally over. I had been caught out about the timing of it, had assumed it must surely end yesterday. But no, Thursday was yet another day off. I kept noting passing references on TV to this being "the longest holiday ever", but kept dismissing them - thinking to myself, "Oh, it's just a week, surely. Whatever are they talking about?" This year, though, the traditional Mid-Autumn Day holiday fell on Saturday, in the middle of the 'golden week' break for the October 1st National Day. And that's worth an extra day for itself, of course. Now, you might think (and I might very well agree with you) that the sensible thing to do would be just to ignore the 'day off' for Mid-Autumn Day this year, since it falls during another holiday (it's only a year or two ago that it started being recognised as a national holiday anyway). And if the populace are getting uppity at being short-changed on their holidays, well, you could always allocate an extra day of holiday elsewhere (there are plenty of other traditional holidays that aren't yet honoured with a day off work; and some, like Qing Ming, the main ancestor-worship festival, that would benefit from having two or more days off rather than just one). Or just not require people to work through the whole of the adjacent weekends (which always happens with 'golden weeks', rather undercutting the benefit of the holiday). But NO - everything about this 60th Birthday Celebration had to be BIGGER than anything we'd ever seen before. Including the length of the holiday. So - 8 days it was. Sigh. |
Friday, October 09, 2009
Haiku for the week
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2 comments:
What's the magic (assuming any) in the number 60?
Years ago, I had a Chinese subordinate who told me that China tends to celebrate things which come in multiples of 12. (As opposed to the US, maybe the UK too, where the magic tends to coalesce around multiples of 10.) If this is true, then I guess Chinese 60 = US 50?
(That subordinate never did satisfactorily explain "Why 12?" Presumably the 10 comes from the traditional number of fingers on which to count things. But I never understood 12.)
I don't think there's anything especially significant about it in numerology, but the Chinese Zodiac goes in cycles of 12 years (12 different zodiac animals) and 60 years (lesser known, but in addition to the animals there are 5 elements, which get paired in succession with each animal - so it takes 60 years to complete a great cycle).
I guess that's why it's seen as a particularly big deal.
That, and maybe the fact that the Communist leadership aren't confident they'll make it to 70 or 75 years (and certainly not to 100 or 120). Maybe this was their last hurrah. How I'd like to think so!
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