中國是否應該拋棄現行長假安排
After another weeklong Chinese holiday filled with tales of chaos, the government seems to be rethinking its scheduling strategy.
十一黃金週期間，西湖邊上成羣結隊的遊客。又一個爲期一週的長假過去了，各種以混亂爲主題的假期故事不絕於耳。在此之後，中國政府似乎開始重新考慮假期安排策略。China's holiday system is notoriously complicated, with Most of the country's workers required to make up for long public holidays--the National Day 'Golden Week' in October and Chinese New Year in late winter--by working prior or following weekends. Thanks to this year's schedule, most people are in the office today.
中國假期安排的複雜程度早已惡名遠揚，大多數在職者都要在長假──“十一黃金週”和春節假期──前後的週末調休。正是因爲這個緣故，10月12日（上週六）這天大部分人都在辦公室裏幹活。The original idea behind the long holidays was to spur consumer spending. But with disposable incomes on the rise, tourist destinations are getting overwhelmed and traffic bottlenecked for miles. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, Chinese tourists made 428 million trips last week during Golden Week.
長假制度的初衷是爲了刺激消費者花錢。但隨着可支配收入的增多，旅遊景點開始人滿爲患，交通堵塞動輒數公里。據國有新聞機構新華社報道，今年十一黃金週期間，全國共接待遊客4.28億人次。
Jiuzhaigou, a site in the western mountains of Sichuan province famous for its crystal-clear waters, was overwhelmed when 40,000 visitors showed up one day--more than its buses could cope with, leaving some visitors stranded waiting for a shuttle out of the park for hours. Tourists backed up traffic for more than two kilometers in Pinganzhuang in Shandong province to drive past Nobel Prize-winning author Mo Yan's home, and West Lake in east China's Hangzhou saw more than a million tourists on Oct. 2--a day when volunteers gathered more than 7,000 cigarette butts from a road along the lake.
Associated Press國慶假期，天安門城樓前擠滿了遊客。在以水聞名的四川知名景區九寨溝，一天之內接待了4萬名遊客，巴士運力不足，結果造成部分遊客無法搭上接送車輛，滯留時間長達數小時。在山東平安莊，因爲大量遊客開車前往諾貝爾文學獎得主莫言的家鄉，擁堵的汽車排成了兩公里的長隊。在杭州西湖，10月2日一天的遊客就超過了100萬，當天志願者在西湖邊的一條路上揀了7,000多個菸頭。Beijing has generally seemed deaf to complaints about the convoluted calendar, but in a sign they might be willing to re-evaluate things, authorities set up a poll Thursday on three major news portals--Sina, Sohu and Tencent--asking users to vote on current holiday arrangements.
對於假期安排過於複雜的抱怨，北京一直以來似乎充耳不聞，但有一個跡象顯示，當局似乎有意重新對長假策略進行評估：有關部門上週四在三大主要新聞門戶網站──新浪、搜狐和騰訊──進行了一次民調，讓用戶對現行的長假安排模式投票。By mid-day Friday, more than 400,000 users had voted on Sina, with 82% expressing dissatisfaction with current public holiday arrangements, and 56% saying the requirement to work weekends before or after in order to get longer holidays should be scrapped. On Sohu, where more than 250,000 users had voted, 76% said they were dissatisfied with the current system.
截至上週五中午，超過40萬名用戶在新浪投了票，其中82%表示對現行的法定節假日放假安排不滿意，56%的用戶說調借週末形成的7天長假不應該保留。有25萬多名用戶在搜狐投票，76%的人對現行的法定節假日放假安排不滿意。Online polls aren't scientific, but comments on China's Twitter-like microblog Sina Weibo reinforce a picture of widespread humbug.
在線民調並不科學，但人們在新浪微博發表的言論爲這一人人牢騷滿腹的畫面提供了補充。Some Weibo users blamed the condensing of the May Day holiday, which was shortened from seven days in the past to a current three days, for the overcrowding.
一些微博用戶將擁擠狀況歸咎於五一勞動節假期被壓縮。五一假期以前爲七天，現在被縮短到三天。'I strongly support resuming the long holiday in May,' one user wrote, with another proclaiming 'Give me back my May Holiday!'
一名用戶寫道，我強烈支持恢復五一長假。還有一名用戶說，還我五一長假！Others simply complained about the irregularity of the holiday arrangements. 'This kind of 'vacation' is killing people!' one user wrote.
還有一些人對假期安排大吐苦水。一名用戶寫道，這麼“放假”會死人的。'I would rather have only one day off, instead of working for seven days in a row,' another said.
還有一名用戶說，我寧可只休一天，也不願意一連七天上班。Even the official Xinhua news agency piled on, running a commentary in the middle of the National Day holiday headlined 'Golden Week, or golden mess?'
就連新華社也跟進了，在10月3日發表了一篇社論，題爲“國慶長假：黃金週還是黃金粥？”(National Day holiday: Golden Week, or golden mess?)。China's cabinet has said it expects a system of paid leave, which would help alleviate the holiday crunch, to be fully in place by 2020. But Xinhua argued that such a system would disproportionately benefit workers in government organizations and state-owned enterprises, since factory workers or employees of private companies could simply have their vacation requests denied.
中國國務院說，預計2020年前帶薪休假制度將會全面實施，這將有助於減輕假期擁堵的情況。但新華社的報道說，這一制度可能更會讓在政府組織和國企工作的人員受益，因爲工廠工人或是民營企業員工的休假請求可能會直接遭到否決。Readers: What do you think about China's holiday system? Voice your opinion in the poll.
讀者們：你們如何看待中國的長假安排？請在調查中表達出你的意見。
