National Day - WHY?

[Chips Downe]

Madam gave a talk about 'National Days'...evidendently America spent $80 million celebrating this year, but it's not up to much in Japan (not as exciting as in China!)

At the I asked why October 1 is the national day, and quick as a flash, she told me 'China was built on that day' - a rather unsatisfying answer for a nit-picker like me. Nobody else had a clue either. I mentioned the First Fleet in Sydney in January 26 (I hope this is correct, but then, who cares, if they can't explain their own choice of day...)

I just did a quick Google search but all the answers seemed to be written by the Chinese Ministry of Vague Propaganda - equally meaningless...

I don't suppose it's the day they squashed all those people with tanks in ... no...sorry, not really funny...

Does anyone know why October 1 was chosen instead of January 29?

[Decurso]

Oct 1,1949 was the day Mao Zedong announced the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in Tianamen Square.

[Mr Nobody]

Was the day something before that? Some kind of religious holiday or pagan superstition that was converted?

October 1 has long been a pagan festival due to something or other I can't recall. Oh, yeah, harvests and stuff, in the northern hemisphere. Forgot I was north of the equator. Forget me own head next if I had one. Well, OK, august moon is another, and august bank holiday in England. Probably on ad infinitum.

So, is there a parallel?


(and for once, Nobody had no idea)

[Raoul Duke]

No major holidays I can find in my Big Book O' Traditional Chinese Holidays. I think this one is a Commie thing.

[Mr Nobody]

Yep, I asked the wife not an hour ago, and she said the same thing.

Apparently it is following a tradition of naming a day the dynasty starts on as a holiday, though. It isn't so much a "country" day as a political sort of thing, or a govt thing. Something like that.

[Decurso]

Hail to the king....

[Lotus Eater]

Me - I am just happy to have the time off - don't really care why! Same with Easter, Christmas, New Year, Queens Birthday, ANZAC, Australia Day etc etc. Give me a holiday and I'll not say NO!

[Newbs]

I was in Shanghai on 1st October 2001. That year it was considered especially auspicious because National Day coincided with Mid-Autumn Festival. I can see why to some extent, the political coinciding with the cultural. Some TV station (Pearl I think) stupidly decided to interview a foreigner they saw wandering aroung People's Square that day, but all the stupid foreigner could do was mouth inanities about how wonderful China was in really bad Chinese. No way are they going to broadcast that, thought I, but a colleague saw it later.

Chips, up in the publick bar check out a thread entitled Happy Australia Day? I guess it was on January 26th.

[Chips Downe]

Thanks all...I guess the founding of the PRC is as good a date as any for them to commemorate - typical China though, we still don't know why this particular day. Maybe Mao finally got the paperwork done the night before, but I betcha, if there's no particular reason, he waited a day or so to achieve a nice easy to remember date...

Thanks for the advice about the publick bar mate - I'm new and seem to have missed it so far, but it looks like a wealth of holiday reading - I'll get to Australia Day. I always regret that it doesn't come during the term so we could have a class and celebrate it (I've thought of lying and changing the date, or doing a class project about the Queen and Her birthday...recently I've been considering Melbourne Cup Day, which I think is our true national day...although I've never been interested in gambling. Do you think I could, or should, organise a sweepstake? Maybe I shouldn't. Ah god, what is there for them to talk about...?

[Mr Nobody]

I gather it wasn't exactly on the day that the job was all done, no. You probably have it in one, Chips. Declared so the peasants would remember it next year.

[Lotus Eater]

We don't have the Queen's Birthday ON her birthday, , we have it because it suited us to have a holiday in a long boring bit of time. Sounds OK if the Chinese decide to have a holiday in a boring bit of time for them. I'm still happy to have play time whenever.

One of my 4th year students told me she would miss my Friday class because she was "going our to play with her her friends, for the first time without her parents". !

I was to explain the Worm and the Clod of Clay next lesson (from Book of Thel), so she was really upset to be missing it. "I really wanted to hear you tell us about this" she said. So did I.

[con's fly is open]

I'm all for Queen Elizabeth Day. Stick it in February.

[Mr Nobody]

Ok, I'll bite. What's the worm and clay story, and what is the book of thel?

[Lotus Eater]

William Blake. His first illustrated book of poetry. He didn't see himself as a poet, rather as an artist. But the Book of Thel is his exploration of sexuality in an allegorical manner. Thel (daughter of Venus) asks a lily, a clod, a worm and a clod of clay what it is like to live (and experience LIFE, i.e. sex) in the mortal world. They each answer in their own experiences challenging her to take a mortal form. In the end she is too frightened and retreats. And I have to teach it!


PS I have a rat in my apartment. It just ran past me.

[Decurso]

Ohhh. sounds hot!!!!

Not the rat mind you...the book.

[Wolf]

Ah, the holiday that nobody knows. In Japan I encountered a couple as well.

July 20 (or so) is "Ocean Day" in Japan. I asked around and got tons of non-answers for a long time. Then I finally find out that the government just decided to ram in a holiday in July, as there had been no national holidays between May and August.

Same with "Green Day" in April 29. I remember asking my adult students about this holiday when I first got here in 1999. No one gave me a straight answer. I find out later that it was the last emperor's birthday; and they just kept it as a holiday after he died but renamed it "Green Day." Note how the last emperor (ha ha, the previous emperor) died in 1989, and all my adult students of 1999 would have had a living memory of what Green Day used to be and why it changed, but they decided not to tell me for some reason.

I think Mao Zedong gave a radio address on 1 October 1949 from Bejing saying that now the ROC is the PRC. And if Mao says it, then it's so (sorry Virginia, but he says there's no Santa.) But I could be wrong. Watch one of the epic 874 hour biographies they play on TV on his birthday.

[Newbs]

Can't find the reference at the moment, but I think it was Harrison Salisbury in "The New Emperors" who suggested that once Mao had won the civil war, early '49, he spent some months out in the Fragrant Hills, composing poems. I got the impression that he went into Tian An Men Square in late September on a whim but maybe not so. Maybe he did want a date that was easy to remember.

[Mr Nobody]

Blake. Studied him a little when I did romantic poets as part of unfinished second degree.

Tyger tyger and all that.

Not a fan, except for Tyger. Didn't he also do Don Juan, pron Jew-ann?


(And wolf - leave me out of this. I don't even know what day it is let alone if it is a holiday. I haven't for nearly two decades, since I started teaching kung fu.)

[Dr. Gonzo]

Call in the lass in the forum photo.
Rats Au Naturale. Rat Fricasee. Rats Flambe. Siberian Hampster.Good for what ails ya.

[Shane]

I'm all for holidays, but I don't see why we have to pay two days back afterwards - kind of defeats the purpose of having seven days off!

[Mr Nobody]

Only have 3 days off, the other two are just moved days. I had it explained to me. I now have a permanent headache that will probably only go away after monday.

Oh, yeah, the photo is apparently an 'earth rat' and tastes similar to 'bamboo rat' but I would say not as fatty judging by the beasts involved. I asked the good wife, who said they taste like 'meat', if that is any help.

[Newbs]

I'm all for holidays, but I don't see why we have to pay two days back afterwards

Shane, it's really quite simple. The workers of China are hard working and after the summer vacation, a tough month has been spent asleep at their desks and maybe teaching a lesson or two so they need a break. So the authorities give them a holiday. To make it even better they tack on a weekend each end of the holiday so that they get a 9 day holiday. It makes a lot of sense to give 1.3 billion people a holiday all at the same time. That way it ensures that productivity for the rest of the year remains at record highs. (If you don't believe me on this, just check any CCTV broadcast.)

So all the hard working workers have a week's holiday. However, because the workers are so hard working, this week's holiday has a deleterious effect on productivity. So to overcome this it makes sense to have the workers working hard overtime on the weekend before the golden week and the weekend after. This ensures that productivity remains high whilst the workers get the holiday that they so richly deserve.

Clear now?

[Mr Nobody]

Yep, that's what caused my headache, alright. For a while there, I thought it was the cheap baijiu, but nope, it's the national day holiday logic, for sure.

[Chips Downe]

Hey, it's not the cheap stuff that causes the headaches! My lovely student has just brought me back, from quite a considerable distance (2 buses and a long train then another bus to my home), another case of the stuff, a gift from his dad.

Anyway, is everyone having a golden week? Can anyone beat a Chinese fishing trip? (More baijiu than fish, I assure you)...a group of guys sitting around an artificial lake, some with hats (shades of Family Album...) and one guy even had a folding chair...uh oh, I thought, but luckily my friend gets bored quickly...

I've also had a marriage proposal and there's a 28 year old who wants me to adopt him... (both worthy individuals, do you think I could swing 'em both with Immigration? I reckon I'd set for life if we all went back home...)

[Shane]

newbs said:

Clear now?

Clear as mud. Cheers.