{"id":12176,"date":"2016-05-02T13:00:18","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T17:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=12176"},"modified":"2016-04-26T07:20:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T11:20:33","slug":"happy-labor-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/happy-labor-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Labor Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Labor Day!
\n\u52b3\u52a8\u8282\u5feb\u4e50!
\nl\u00e1o d\u00f2ng ji\u00e9 ku\u00e0i l\u00e8<\/h2>\n

Yesterday marked International Labor Day in many countries around the world (except for the US, which celebrates in September). Know colloquially in Chinese as simply “5-1<\/strong>” \u00a0(\u4e94\u4e00 : w\u01d4 y\u012b), this holiday was once a Golden Week<\/strong> (\u9ec4\u91d1\u5468 \u2013 hu\u00e1ng j\u012bn zh\u014du) along with Spring Festival and National Day, but was demoted to a one-day holiday in 2008 when the government decided to add Tomb Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival to the holiday calendar. People still usually get a 4-5 day holiday for Labor Day, but they do so in a roundabout way, working the weekend prior to or after the actual holiday in order to get more days off in a row. Some years, people end up working seven days in a row, getting three off for the holiday, working two more, and then having a normal weekend. If it sounds messed up, that’s because it is. Anyways, let’s celebrate Labor Day in China through some of our best posts over the years!<\/p>\n

Time to Travel<\/h2>\n
\"A

A Chinese music festival. Why not?<\/p><\/div>\n

Even though it’s no longer a Golden Week, 5-1 is still a huge holiday in terms of travel. Popular spots like Hong Kong, Xiamen, and Zhangjiajie are absolutely overrun with tourists. This isn’t exactly a relaxing time to travel, but you can still manage to have quite a bit of fun. Just look at some of my past May Day exploits as living proof. Back in 2010, we had a wild adventure getting to a music festival in the middle of nowhere. Read the story<\/a> to find out how I ended up dropping my pants in a KTV joint before passing out on the couch.<\/p>\n

\"One

One of Dalian’s many, many squares.<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2013, we decided to take a trip to the coastal city of Dalian<\/strong> (\u5927\u8fde – d\u00e0 li\u00e1n) to cross Liaoning province off our list. Before it even really started, what was supposed to be a nice little vacation morphed into a disaster – the place I booked had no record of my reservation and no rooms available. In a bit of a pickle, we ended up staying in a “tourist hotel” and only got a decent rate by signing up for their day tour. If you’ve read my “10 Things I Hate About China<\/a>” post, you know how I feel about Chinese tour groups already. Needless to say, the tour was absolutely horrendous. The only thing good that came out of it is that we managed to get some of our money back, and I made this funny video warning all of you not to make a similar mistake when traveling in China:<\/p>\n