There is also another irritating fact about Chinese holidays. The exact dates you are going to get off are kept secret until the very last minute by which time all the cheap flight tickets have been bought up, presumably by the officials who were in on the secret.

@Ishmael: "seems rather odd to find holidays being given with one hand and taken back with the other"

Yeah, well I think it's typical of China under CPC. Giving the impression of something but reality often being something else.

From the constitution to land ownership to PLA and everything in between.

True dat.
Anyway, a bunch of us sang the Internationale in front of the Cantina yesterday evening, aware of differences between ideals and reality.

So three days holiday not seven, or even five. What's your point exactly?

Of course it is still only international, not global - in Canada and the US (US for the obvious reason that May 1 1886 was the killing of workers demonstrating for an 8-hour work day in serious street fighting in the Haymarket area of Chicago, which fixed the date internationally and which many Americans STILL don't know about), and in a very few other places too it's been nationalized, with Labor Days assigned different dates. And then of course there's the tradition of Spring planting, social role reversals, fondness for alcohol and the Maypole thing in some western countries to confuse issues... but hey! there's nothing wrong with Spring either. Or beer. And you can work more than 8 hours a day if you like - indeed, you may need to.

.

Actually, the Haymarket riot occurred on May 4, 1886 after someone threw a bomb at police. Seven police officers were killed. Both the police and the demonstrators began shooting. "Killing of workers" is typical phrasing for singers of the Internationale.

it began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day, the day after police killed eight workers.