清明

Well, so far I’ve found nothing about Air New Zealand on the Chinese internet- maybe I need to figure out how to search properly.

But I have found a report about the upcoming Qingming holiday.

清明时节放假三天

Three Days Holiday for Qingming

时间为4月4日至6日

The time will be from the 4th to the 6th of April

本报讯 （记者吴狄 温薷）昨日，北京市政府办公厅发出通知，4月4日（清明节）至6日全市放假三日。这是国务院调整新的法定假期后的第一个清明节法定假日。

This paper’s reporters Wu Di and Wen Ru: Yesterday the general office of the Beijing Municipal Government issued a notice, there will be a three-day holiday from 4th April (Qingming Festival) to 6th April. This will be the first public holiday at Qingming Festival since the State Council set the new
public holidays.

4月4日(清明节)为法定节假日，4月5日(星期六)、4月6日(星期日)照常公休。各企事业单位可根据各自的生产和工作具体情况自行安排、调整假日时间。市政府要求节日期间，各单位做好防火、安全保卫和卫生防疫等工作。

The 4th April (Qingming Festival) will be a public holiday, and 5th April (Saturday) and 6th April (Sunday) will be the usual general holidays. Each enterprise and institution can arrange and adjust the holiday times according to its specific production and work circumstances. The municipal government requires that each unit will carry out well its fire prevention, security, and hygiene and disease prevention work over the holiday period.

清明节期间，北京公交部门将开通11条清明节扫墓临时专线，分别开往通惠陵园、太子峪陵园、佛山陵园、温泉墓园、八达岭人民公墓五大陵园。

Over the Qingming holiday period, Beijing’s public transport authorities will open 11 temporary special tomb-sweeping lines going to the five big cemeteries of Tonghui Cemetery, Taiziyu Cemetery, Foshan Cemeterey, Wenquan Cemetery, and Badaling People’s Public Cemetery.

11条临时线路开通时间为3月下旬至4月上旬期间的双休日，以及清明节4月4日、4月5日、4月6日三天假日。市民如需了解发车地点、发车时间等，可拨打北京巴士旅游分公司咨询电话67276666查询。

The 11 temporary lines will run on weekends in the last third of March and the first third of April, as well as on the three days of the Qingming holiday, 4th, 5th and 6th April. If citizens need to know the departure times and places of the buses, they can phone the Beijing Tour Bus Company’s consulting line, 6727 6666, to inquire.

At first I wasn’t happy about the change to the public holidays because, although it keeps the illogically placed (from a school year point of view) National Day golden week in the first week of October (only one month after the start of school), it took away what was a perfectly timed mid-semester break by cutting the May Day golden week to a mere three days. Then I realised we get a long weekend basically every month through the second semester at Qingming, May Day and Dragon Boat Festival, which isn’t too bad.

Still, it seems Qingming has been timed perfectly this year, falling on a Friday, allowing us to just take a long weekend- not that it makes any difference for me, seeing as I don’t have class on Fridays anyway. Glancing through the calendar, it would seem that May Day, falling on a Thursday, is going to involve a rejigged weekend and a long work week one side of the holiday. Dragon Boat Festival falls on a Sunday, though, June 8, so who knows what they’ll do then. Hopefully they’ll leave the weekend intact and add a holiday on either the previous Friday or following Monday- hopefully the Monday so that I’ll actually benefit from the holiday.

What’s got me confused about Dragon Boat Festival, however, is this post by Micah, in which he translates an article I can’t quite figure out:

According to the changes made in “Regulation on Public Holidays for National Annual Festivals and Memorial Days”, a one-day holiday will be declared on three of China’s traditional holidays: Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival. However, as some netizens have pointed out, cases exist like 2009 where there will be two months of May on the lunar calendar, with Dragon Boat Festivals on both May 28 and May² 27. The State Council’s decision regarding “Regulation on Public Holidays” does not delineate how to settle this situation.

I just asked lzh, and her response seems to back up what Google Calendar is telling me: Dragon Boat Festival is 5/5 on the lunar calendar, which this year falls on June 8. I can’t figure out where this “May 28 and May² 27″ is coming from, since neither of these dates matches any date for Dragon Boat Festival, lunar or solar, I’m looking at. And I certainly can’t find a second Dragon Boat Festival on Google Calendar, but, well, I don’t consider Google to be the authoritative source for such things.

Anyway, I guess we’ll find out some time in May.