China Holiday

There are 7 legal festivals of 27 days holiday for Chinese people on the year of 2012, the seven legal festivals are New Year’s Day, Spring Festival, Qinming Festival, Labour Day, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. We provide you detailed information of 2012 public holidays as follows:

New Year’s Day: from January 1st to January 3rd, three days off work. While December 31st of 2011, it’s Saturday but a working day.

Spring Festival: from January 22nd to January 28th, seven days of golden week. While January 21st(Saturday)and January 29th(Sunday)need to work.

Spring Festival commonly known as Lunar New Year, from Lunar December 8th to the end of Lunar January. The festival term lasts more than a month time, it’s the most important, traditional and ceremonious festival in China, it’s the symbol of unity, prosperity, new hope for the future.According to records, the Chinese Spring Festival has more than 4, 000 years of history.

Qingming Festival: from April 2nd to April 4th, three days off work.While March 31st(Saturday), April 1st(Sunday)should work.

Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb-sweeping Day or Pure Brightness, is a traditional festival in China with more than 2500 years of history.Qingming Festival is the time of spring with fresh air and warm temperature, the grasses and trees start to sprout, it’s just the good time that people could travel around to enjoy the nice spring. Until today, the mourning customs of worship the ancestors and died relatives is still very popular among Chinese people.

Labor Day: from April 29th to May 1st, three days off work. April 28th(Saturday)work as usual.

Dragon Boat Festival: from June 22nd to June 24th, three days off work.

Dragon Boat Festival or Double Fifth Festival has more than 2000 years of history in China.It is the folk festival that all Chinese people taking sports, preventing illnesses and disease, avoiding the plague and praying for health.Another saying that Dragon Boat Festival is the traditional one that Chinese people commemorate the life and death of the famous Chinese scholar Qu Yuan. During the festival, people have the customs to eat dumplings, drink Xionghuan Wine, hold dragon boat racing etc.

Mid-Autumn Festival & National Day: from September 30th to October 7th, eight days off work.While September 29th(Saturday)should work.

Every year on lunar August 15th is the Mid-Autumn Festival;it’s just the middle time of autumn, so gave the name as Mid-Autumn. Mid-Autumn Festival is the second largest and traditional festival after Spring Festival. It already has more than thousands years of history. During mid-autumn, the moon is more round and more bright than usual, Chinese family members and friends have the tradition to gather together to eat moon cake and admire the beautiful and bright moon above the night sky. Round moon means families reunions, parents, sisters, brothers, children all gathered with grand-parents enjoy the loves. Therefore, mid-autumn festival is the time that all the Chinese people entrusted with the infinite love of life and eager for a better life in the future.

People who would like to travel China or businessmen who want to visit our companies, please come here to avoid the above important holidays. The following holiday calendar table could help you make a good plan of your China tour.

2012 China Public Holiday Calendar

Festival	Date	Legal Holidays
New Year’s Day	Jan.1st–Jan.3rd	3 days
Spring Festival	Jan.22nd–Jan.28th	7 days
Qingming Festival	Apr.2nd–Apr.4th	3 days
Labor Day	Apr.29th–May 1st	3 days
Dragon Boat Festival	Jun.22nd–Jun.24th	3 days
Mid-Autumn Day & National Day	Sep.30th–Oct.7th	8 days

Besides the 7 legal festivals on which all people can enjoy days off work, Chinese people celebrate four other festivals on which some people have a half day off, they are Women's Day ( March 8th ), Youth Day ( May 4th ), Children's Day (June 1st) and Army Day (August 1st). Some other festivals are celebrated even without days off, such as Teachers' Day (September 10th).

Chinese people legally share more than 115 days off including weekends and festivals. Employees have 5 to 15 days of paid annual leave. Students and teachers have summer and winter vacations for about three months. The summer vacation usually starts from July 1st and ends from August 31st, and the winter vacation often start on January or February, it depends on the exact date of the Spring Festival.

Attention: There are two 'Golden Weeks’ among all the Chinese holidays, they are-Spring Festival Week and National Day Week. Both of the two holidays last for three days but by combining two weekends with them, people benefit from seven consecutive days off. During these two weeks, most people go out and enjoy themselves in a great variety of ways with a resultant boost to the economy, hence the nickname 'Golden Week'. Hotel rooms, train tickets or air tickets will definitely be in great demand then. Therefore, we recommend that people who are planning to visit China should be avoid these Golden Weeks in view of the huge crowds that gather at the major tourist attractions, not only big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, but also some middle large cities and small towns, for example, Jingxian town of Xuancheng City from Anhui Province.