July and August of each year are the peak period of vacation. According to statistics, the proportion of national statutory holidays and weekend holidays accounts for more than 31% of the year, and we spend nearly 1/3 of our time on vacation every year. So, do you know how the vacation system came about today? Before this, how did the ancients take vacation? How did they spend their vacation? Song Dynasty has had the "Golden Week" in the early days. Due to the constraints of productivity levels, people did not have special holidays, and the main rest activities were caused by sacrificial activities. When the Qin Dynasty was implemented, with the realization of " unified ", the country's administrative management system became increasingly complete, and officials began to have a relatively complete leave-off system, called "return". Since the Han Dynasty, a fixed rest time has been established and set to rest for one day every five days, which is called "rest". " Hanlu " describes that "the official gets a bath for five days, and he says he can rest and wash the bath for a while." In addition, there were also menstrual holidays in the Han Dynasty during the winter solstice and summer solstice, and there were special care for funeral holidays. The shortest bereavement is 36 days, and the longest is three years.
Eastern Han Banquet painting bricks
From Han Dynasty to Sui Dynasty , officials all had a day off every five days. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, a rotating system appeared, which was called "Fake". Since , the Tang Dynasty has become a ten-day holiday system. Each ten-day (10th day) has a one-day break and a 36-day break a year. However, these are regular holidays. Starting from , the emperor's birthday was also set as a festival for the whole country to celebrate, called "Christmas". "Qianqiu Festival" is a festival determined by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang based on his birthday, with three days off. The Tang Dynasty also had a "National Day" and set the day of the death of the late emperor as an anniversary. In addition, the family leave during the Tang Dynasty was determined by the distance between the officials and their parents: officials whose parents lived 500 miles away could visit them once every five years for a period of 15 days; if they were 3,000 miles away, they could visit them once every three years. , lasting 35 days. By the Song Dynasty, the number of holidays was greater. According to the notes of "Wenchang Mixed Grains" in the history of the Song Dynasty, at that time, the New Year (Spring Festival), the cold food and the winter solstice were on holiday for 7 days, similar to today's "Golden Week". During the period of Song Shenzong's , officials' holidays throughout the year could reach 124 days. The Song Dynasty also continued the Tang Dynasty's tradition of setting festivals based on events. For example, Song Zhenzong set up the Tianqing Festival due to the Tianshu incident, with five days off. After the Song Dynasty, officials' holidays began to shrink. When Yuanchao was the time, the national statutory holidays were reduced to 16 days. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that there are only Spring Festival, Winter Solstice, and his birthday holidays throughout the year. Although three days of holidays per month were restored and some statutory holidays were still around 50 days. The holiday system of in the Qing Dynasty basically continued in the previous dynasties and there were no major changes. "Travel Guide" appeared in the Ming Dynasty In the early days, the "rest" system was more effective than rest and relaxation. In ancient times, bathing was a priority for bathing the head and body, which had the effect of "bathing the body and bathing the body", so people often need to spend a long time to clean and care for personal care. In addition, officials of the Han Dynasty needed to work in specific places, so "retreat" was not only a bath leave, but also a day for returning home to visit relatives. By , Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, people had more holiday entertainment methods, including Go, Backgammon, and Potcasting activities, among which Go was the most popular. According to the "Biography of Liu Yun in Southern History", "History of Southern Wu of Liang is good at playing chess, and Yun made him choose the chess record, and 278 people were able to pass the graphic", which shows the common chess activities. By the Tang Dynasty, the wind of climbing high and looking into the distance prevailed. Sun Simiao records in "Qianjin Yue Ling": "On the Double Ninth Festival, you must climb high and look into the distance with food and wine, and enjoy the banquet and enjoy the autumn aspirations." Although climbing high did not appear in the Tang Dynasty, you can avoid evil at this time to avoid evil at this time." The concept of climbing for purpose has been downplayed, and fitness, play and other themes have become the theme. During the Song Dynasty, the "playing methods" for holidays were more abundant. In addition to regular events such as lanterns and , moon viewing, flowers viewing, singing and dancing acrobatics, and going out to play, it even included gambling.
Mahezhi "Binfengtu "
"holiday consumption" at that time was very active, chess and card games were popular across the country, and folk entertainment such as fishing, cricket fighting are widely loved, and various wine shops, tea shops, Snack stalls are everywhere, and they have also created high-end facilities and in-depth services, which can be called the "Fanlou" of a five-star hotel. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, due to the reduction of holidays, distance travel activities also decreased accordingly. In addition to the regular visits to relatives and friends, it was popular for people at that time to "bathing". At this time, the "bathing" was much different from the "rest" in the Han Dynasty. The emergence of public bathrooms made "bathing" an activity of chatting and leisure and entertainment. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the improvement of economic level and the development of water transportation gradually increased the number of people traveling, and the earliest guide manual "Unified Road Map Record". The author of this manual is Huizhou merchant Huang Bian, 1570. Print in Suzhou . However, it is also common to work on holidays and work overtime. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, an official named Shang Ziping went up the mountain to chop firewood on his holiday to subsidize his family income. There is a record that "he was a county gongcao, he went back to the mountain to take the wages and sell it for food and drink." When Emperor Cheng of Han , there was a "thief Cao's officer", namely Zhang Fu, the official in charge of the investigation and arrest of thieves. "I refused to rest alone and took up Cao's rule", and often worked overtime on rest days. Will there be more and more holidays in the future The ancient vacation system was mainly aimed at the bureaucracy. For the general public, there was no institutional guarantee. Many workers worked year after year and year. After the founding of New China, a vacation system for all citizens was truly born. In December 1949, the State Council issued the "National New Year Festival and Anniversary Holiday Measures". This is also the first regulation to regulate holidays after the founding of New China. This method has basically formed the basic pattern of statutory holidays in my country: New Year's Day, Spring Festival, May Day, and National Day are stipulated as statutory holidays for the whole people. Since then, my country's holiday system has not undergone any major changes. However, since the reform and opening up, my country has had several more important holiday adjustments. For example, the "five-day working system" implemented in 1995, the "Golden Week" implemented in 1999, and the " Regulations on Paid Annual Leave for Employees " officially implemented in 2008. During this period, the reform of the vacation system mainly focused on the calculation of labor time and the annual leave system. After more than 40 adjustments, my country's vacation system has gradually improved. In fact, the amount of national vacation time depends on the level of labor productivity. Nowadays, with the improvement of the national industrialization and informatization level, my country's labor productivity has greatly improved, which has also made it possible to extend the holiday. Wang Qiyan, director of the China Leisure Economic Research Center, believes that the reform of the vacation system cannot be achieved overnight. There should be a long-term plan that needs to be gradually implemented in combination with the development stage of the national economy and the current development status of national tourism and leisure.
column editor: Gong Danyun Title image source: Visual China Picture editor: Jae Xi
Interior text pictures provided by the author
Source: Author: Xiao Yawen
