Observing the Weekend

Yesterday was Friday all day. In China days of the calendar are sacred.  October 1st is a National Holiday.  And for the week after that day of remembrance, the nation has a week’s vacation.  Days of the week however are not sacred.  In the U.S. the weekend itself is sacred.  No one would ever imagine regulating that American’s must work on the weekend.  Sunday, certainly, because of the Christian legacy but the weekend as a whole may have eclipsed the importance of the Sabbath in and of itself.  The weekend is American.

China’s different.  The nation shall rest for seven days, from Saturday, till the following Saturday.  And when you are done resting, and spending, you shall get back to work on Saturday and work on Sunday as well.  I spoke with a friend in Tokyo in the afternoon:  “Happy Friday John!”  He was so excited.  I felt like I hadn’t earned anything yet.  When my kids were in a Chinese program it meant they’d be heading back to school today.   My Chinese colleagues will be replying to emails in a torrent after the week off.  This weekend, however we are observing the weekend. 

Rain on Thursday and rain on Friday.  But, as the forecast suggested, today it’s nothing but sun.  So we’re gaming the system and today while everyone is supposed to be working we and some friends will head out to the countryside to get a hike in.

If you look at the Google maps of Beijing, there are many “scenic areas” that ring the northern part of the city.   Now some of these I’ve been to, though I can't remember the names.  I clip out the Chinese name of one after another and throw them into a search of images.  Yup.  Been there for sure.  But that looks new.  And it’s only a bit over an hours’ drive.  So, with any luck, when the rest of the family decides to rise, we’ll be heading out to the Huangshan of Beijing:  Yunmeng Shan, (Cloud Covered Mountain.)  I hope everyone else is hard at work this weekend. 

In the mean time we are playing records.  My daughter got a record player for her birthday.  She wants to go through all my albums.  They all sound warm and rich and I know crackle and every pop on these LPs.  And appropriately enough, as I finish this post, I have on “Salomon Gundie” by Eric Moris from 1964, on a SKA collection I’ve adored for thirty five years or more “Intensified!”  The song says “Solomon Gundie, was born on a Monday, christened on a Tuesday, married on a Wednesday.”  And later, he is “Sick on a Thursday, worse on a Friday, died on a Saturday, buried on a Sunday. Oh yeah.”