Chit Chat # 15

"The Growing Number of Holidays"

Bob Chen

After reading S.S.'s article on Kevlar reinforced graphite composite rackets and the merits therein, I came up with the following down-to-earth observation about the dates in a year designated to be holidays. It seems to me they are growing faster than ever. Here comes the list, and a reminder for the 40th reunion deposit deadline:

January 1st.- New Year's Day
February 12th.- Lincoln's Birthday, 22nd.- Washington's Birthday
March 12th.- Yellow Flower Hills Rememberence Day, 17th.- St. Patrick's Day
April 4th.- World's Children's Day, 5th.- Palm Sunday, 10th.- Good
Friday, 12th.- Easter Sunday
May 1st.- International Labor Day, 4th.- 5/4 Students' Protesting
Campaign in Peking, 5th.- Cinco de Mayo (Mexican July 4th. ?), 24th.- Empire Day (Victoria's Birthday in UK). 30th.- Memorial Day
June 4th.- Tianmen Incident, the newest date in a long line of Chinese generated dates of importance. 6th.- D-Day
July 1st.- Dominion Day (Canadian July 4th.), 4th.- Independence Day,
7th.- Cowboy/Weaving-girl festival, 12th.- Orangemen's Day (Irish July 4th.?), 14th.- Bastille Day (French July 4th.), 15th.- DEADLINE FOR 40th. REUNION DEPOSIT!
August 15th.- Moon Cake festival
September 7th.- Labor Day, 9th.- Dragonboat festival
October 1st.- PRC's Birthday, 10th.- ROC's Birthday, 31st.- Halloween
November 5th.- Guy Fawkes' Day (South African July 4th. per my ex-wife),
11th.- Veterans Day, 25th.- Thanksgiving Day
December 25th.- Christmas Day, 26th.- Boxing Day

It is interesting to note that July has the largest number of days to celebrate even taking out the mutually exclusive July 4ths. The only major countries without the equivalent of July 4ths. are Germany and Russia. China (either ROC or PRC)'s month for her Birthday is twice as large as UK (October vs. May). Without the Chinese Moon Cake festival, August is the only month in the year that does not have a legal holiday.
Although I do admit that August and 1/2 is not quite legal outside China.