So, now again Japan is in the famous "Golden Week" mode and with three years of blogging behind me, I feel that this is one of those repeat subjects that I tend to mention once every year (check here for past mentions). This year, the string of holidays has come pretty nicely, giving most regular salarymen and office ladies a possible 11 days off in a row by just taking three paid holidays, pretty good deal, huh? Never mind that actually going anywhere, especially overseas, is a complete nightmare considering the crowds and the unreasonable price raises that the travel agencies take the chance of charging now that basically all of Japan is on vacation.
These somewhat pointless and odd holidays that the Golden Week is made up of is basically remains of past Emperor's birthdays here in Japan. The birthday of the Emperor becomes a holiday (current Emperor Heisei is born on December 23, something that is good for us Christmas celebraters!) but when an Emperor passes, and a new one is crowned, they do not remove the previous holiday since it would be a sign of disrespect; instead they have been "re branding" it like this, resulting in these odd holidays.
That is all good and well, but I am not sure that the Japanese people realize that this will result in, after a couple of thousand years, that the whole year will be only holidays! I wonder how that will be managed or if Japan will just exist in an eternal state of "Golden Time"?
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4 comments:
Thats the kind of "enlightenment" they are reaching for. Perpetual golden week, reaching changing Japan into a utopia we would all want to be part of lol
Wow, a constant golden shower time. Mmmm.
Depending on the navigation of the economy and revitalization of industries, the whole year could become only "holidays" a lot sooner than that...
Well, the gov did rename みどりの日 into 昭和の日 in 2007, and 文化の日 is only a very thinly veiled 明治の日...
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