Viewpoints Shouldnt Chinese New Year be a Public Holiday? | Shouldnt Chinese New Year be a Public Holiday? |
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25 January 2001 This year Chinese New Year falls on a Wednesday. Thankfully some British employers (like mine) are good enough to understand the significance of the festival and allow their employees to take leave. Nonetheless, people and projects at work are picking up the pace after the Christmas break, and colleagues and clients just aren't expecting you to 'be away till Monday'. As such, many British Chinese continue working, and the actual Chinese New Year's day is left largely unmarked. So what if we posited the outrageous idea of making Chinese New Year a British public holiday? After all, we all need a good reason for a party at the end of a dreary winter and it is a pretty long wait till Easter. Why not reallocate one of those eventless bank holidays for Chinese New Year? "An outrageous idea", some may say. "Allowing the Chinese to have a public holiday would open the flood gates for everyone else claiming they should have one". No doubt this would happen. But would it not benefit us all to celebrate each others' cultures once in the year? Other multicultural countries celebrate combinations of Eid, Pesach, Devali, Wesak, Chinese New Year and Christmas. Why can't we? Last October, the Runnymede Trust published a report by the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. The report, the product of over 2 years of research and debate by a panel of 21 eminent writers and experts, urged the Government to formally declare Britain a multicultural society. "Such a declaration ... tells the world and our own citizens that we accept and cherish our cultural diversity and intend to give all our citizens an equal opportunity to realise their diverse potentials and contribute to national well being." (The Parekh Report 2000) Perhaps a good and appropriate way to officially recognise Britain's multi-ethnicity would be to start commemorating the various communities' high and holy days. Chinese New Year first please! Visit the Runnymede Trust's website about the Commission Read the Government response to the Parekh Report See how a few other non-Chinese countries celebrate Chinese New Year
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Getting
ready for the Chinese New Year is not an easy task. Biscuits and cakes
have to be baked. The larder has to be stocked full. The house has to
be decorated, and worse, spring cleaned. Cards to be sent off. Reunion
dinner to be cooked and parties to be organised. All this to be done while
working full time.
