中国是否应该抛弃现行长假安排

After another weeklong Chinese holiday filled with tales of chaos, the government seems to be rethinking its scheduling strategy.

十一黄金周期间，西湖边上成群结队的游客。又一个为期一周的长假过去了，各种以混乱为主题的假期故事不绝于耳。在此之后，中国政府似乎开始重新考虑假期安排策略。

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.

中国假期安排的复杂程度早已恶名远扬，大多数在职者都要在长假──“十一黄金周”和春节假期──前后的周末调休。正是因为这个缘故，10月12日（上周六）这天大部分人都在办公室里干活。

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.

长假制度的初衷是为了刺激消费者花钱。但随着可支配收入的增多，旅游景点开始人满为患，交通堵塞动辄数公里。据国有资讯机构新华社报道，今年十一黄金周期间，全国共接待游客4.28亿人次。

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国庆假期，天安门城楼前挤满了游客。在以水闻名的四川知名景区九寨沟，一天之内接待了4万名游客，巴士运力不足，结果造成部分游客无法搭上接送车辆，滞留时间长达数小时。在山东平安庄，因为大量游客开车前往诺贝尔文学奖得主莫言的家乡，拥堵的汽车排成了两公里的长队。在杭州西湖，10月2日一天的游客就超过了100万，当天志愿者在西湖边的一条路上拣了7,000多个烟头。

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.

对于假期安排过于复杂的抱怨，北京一直以来似乎充耳不闻，但有一个迹象显示，当局似乎有意重新对长假策略进行评估：有关部门上周四在三大主要资讯门户网站──新浪、搜狐和腾讯──进行了一次民调，让用户对现行的长假安排模式投票。

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.

截至上周五中午，超过40万名用户在新浪投了票，其中82%表示对现行的法定节假日放假安排不满意，56%的用户说调借周末形成的7天长假不应该保留。有25万多名用户在搜狐投票，76%的人对现行的法定节假日放假安排不满意。

Online polls aren't scientific, but comments on China's Twitter-like microblog Sina Weibo reinforce a picture of widespread humbug.

在线民调并不科学，但人们在新浪微博发表的言论为这一人人牢骚满腹的画面提供了补充。

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.

一些微博用户将拥挤状况归咎于五一劳动节假期被压缩。五一假期以前为七天，现在被缩短到三天。

'I strongly support resuming the long holiday in May,' one user wrote, with another proclaiming 'Give me back my May Holiday!'

一名用户写道，我强烈支持恢复五一长假。还有一名用户说，还我五一长假！

Others simply complained about the irregularity of the holiday arrangements. 'This kind of 'vacation' is killing people!' one user wrote.

还有一些人对假期安排大吐苦水。一名用户写道，这么“放假”会死人的。

'I would rather have only one day off, instead of working for seven days in a row,' another said.

还有一名用户说，我宁可只休一天，也不愿意一连七天上班。

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?'

就连新华社也跟进了，在10月3日发表了一篇社论，题为“国庆长假：黄金周还是黄金粥？”(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.

中国国务院说，预计2020年前带薪休假制度将会全面实施，这将有助于减轻假期拥堵的情况。但新华社的报道说，这一制度可能更会让在政府组织和国企工作的人员受益，因为工厂工人或是民营企业员工的休假请求可能会直接遭到否决。

Readers: What do you think about China's holiday system? Voice your opinion in the poll.

读者们：你们如何看待中国的长假安排？请在调查中表达出你的意见。