Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope.

歡迎回來行閑話英倫, Hi 安瀾。

Hi, Lulu, hi everyone.

Now as we are recording this, we're in October after the National (Day), so basically we've used up all of the public holidays of the year.

Yeah, that is true, (YEAH) but look on the bright side at least it's better than it would be in the UK.

What do you mean?

Well, the last public holiday in the UK was in August and our next public holiday is the end of December.

SO 4 months without any public holiday.

That's right.

Is that our topic today? Public holidays in the UK.

YEAH. I thought, you know we’ve talked about Christmas, we’ve talked about Halloween which instead is not a public holiday. So I thought would be a good idea just to talk about public holidays in general.

Yeah. I guess knowing that you guys have even fewer public holidays did make me feel better.

In the UK there's only eight public holidays.

只有8個(gè)公眾假日? Do you mean public holiday days or eight different public... because you know some of our public holidays are...

8 public holiday days.

Throughout the year?

Well, in England. if you go to Scotland and you go to Wales, they actually have slightly more public holidays than we have in England.

You only have 8 days.

That's right.

Does that include Christmas?

YES.

If I remember correctly, Christmas is not just one day, it's a... Christmas eve?

Not Christmas eve. Christmas eve is a workday.You have Christmas day and you have Boxing day.

Christmas eve is not a holiday?

No.

So technically you still have to work.

You still have to work. But most companies they'll let you finish a little bit earlier.

安瀾, did you hear that this year there's gonna be a change in China, I think. They just announced the New Year's Eve is not going to be a public holiday this year.

Really?

Yeah.

I didn't hear about that.

Yeah. There was... I think people are still trying very hard to accept that, although they do make it up.

Yeah, but do you mean like New Year's Eve or New Year's Day?

No, New Year's Eve (Oh.okay ) like 除夕, I think it's no longer I mean Chinese new year's eve.

Oh okay. I didn't know that .

They just announced it. I think a few days ago. I would say all over the Chinese social media, but that's not the point. Let's get back to the UK. So let's start from the very beginning. YES. We hear this word Bank holiday英國的公眾假期有一個(gè)詞叫做bank holiday叫做銀行假期. Why?

Quite easy really .It's when the banks are closed.

Yeah. The other banks also are closed on sunday.

Yeah which is also traditionally a day of rest. You have to think that it was only in 1980s, 1990s that shops started to open on Sundays, before then no shops would be open on a Sunday .

I see, you don't like switched timetable to make it a longer holiday. 沒有調(diào)休.

No no no no .

No that's one thing I always find so complicated about living in China is the whole idea of swapping days. I still always forget which days are meant to be holidays and which are meant to be work days.

And different companies also have very different policies.

Oh yeah, very much so.

So you're not the only one. I think Chinese we also find it a bit complicated.

It’s really confusing and the thing is in the UK it’s not that confusing because bank holidays always happen on a Monday.

So basically giving people a longer weekend.

Yeah, the only days which probably are not on a Monday are Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

OKAY. So let's talk about Christmas holiday, Christmas holiday like We just talked about it, Christmas Eve就是平安夜,不是一個(gè)bank holiday, no, but technically people still have to work.

People still have to work. Most people will finish work about 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock. Many bosses won't say ok you have to finish at 5 o'clock on Christmas Eve. That's one way of making yourself incredibly unpopular. Yeah, and nobody's working anyway.

So Christmas eve is not a holiday, but Christmas day is a holiday. And day after is called Boxing Day.

Those two are public holidays.

Ah. What about New Year?

New Year's Day is a public holiday, and many offices they unofficially close for the period between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, New Year's Day.

Yeah, which is a reminder if you want to go to the UK like for a trip.

But if you want to have any things done, then perhaps don't choose that period, although it's very festive, but apart from like restaurants or you know...

Nothing really is open.

So food related, drink related places, all the others sort of like official offices, they're closed pretty much during that period.

Yeah. Most offices will close for maybe about a week or so. It's a little bit like lead up to Chinese New Year. If you want to get your taxes done, if you want to get something official done, don't do it at that time.

基本上就是從快要圣誕節(jié), 就平安夜開始一直到新年大概第二天第三天之后, people start to get back to normal.

Yeah exactly.

So you said eight public holidays, I'm doing the numbers, Christmas day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day.

Yeah, and then you've got about 3 to 4 months until the next public holiday.

Which is what? Easter.

Easter

復(fù)活節(jié).

Easter is two days. Good Friday, which is always on a Friday.

Mhm. And Easter Monday.

就是復(fù)活節(jié)之前那個(gè)星期五,對(duì)吧? So technically for Easter people would have four days off.

4 days off, Friday, you have the Easter weekend.

Easter weekend. And for that, the dates would change right every year.

Yeah The dates change every year. So normally it's somewhere between the end of March to mid April.

Hang on, that's 5 days already, what about the other three?

We have May day, so the first of May, but it's normally the Monday that is closest to the first of May.

Oh like you said, it's always on Monday apart from Christmas and Boxing Day.

YEAH. So it might happen on the first of May. Most times it actually happens on my birthday, which is the third of May.

Is that a hint for me to give you a birthday present?

It's a bit of a bad hint because it's gonna be another 7 months until my birthday. I'm sure you'll probably forget before then.

All right, all right, dialing it back. So May day, and then?

And you got the last Monday of May, which is also a public holiday.

For no apparent reason.

No, it's actually based on a religious holiday.

Okay.

And then you got the last Monday of August which is a public holiday.

And that's the last holiday that you are talking about before Christmas.

That's the last holiday before Christmas and it starts all over again.

Yeah. There are some really long periods between holidays for you guys between August and December, and also after you had the New Year's Day, you have to wait till Easter.

Yeah, England, throughout the whole of Europe, has probably got some of the fewest public holidays compared with other countries.

Yeah

You'll notice that England we don't have like a national day. There's no kind of some people have asked for St. George's Day to be made into an..

But that wouldn't be just for England, right?

That would not just be for England, but in Scotland St. Andrews Day is a public holiday and that happens in November.

所以蘇格蘭他們有自己的一個(gè)節(jié)日.

Yeah.

But only for Scotland, only for Scotland .

Wales?

Wales also the same, as well, they have their own public holidays.

So it’s just the English don’t...

Just the English, we don't have one.

I bet you guys feel a bit left out.

We do feel very, very left out, but I can understand because St. George's day is the 23rd of April. So it just means that it's given us another public holiday at a time when we got most of our public holidays.

I see, that's why you were saying before. I remember you said the most miserable period in England is basically right after New Year because it's still really cold it’s still really wet, but you have nothing to look forward to.

Yeah, you got no holidays to look forward to January after Christmas is really miserable in the UK, and some people say that I can't remember which day is, but there's a day in early January, which is officially the most miserable day of the year.

Yeah. Comparatively speaking I think our holidays in China are quite spaced out.

We have New Year元旦 right? And then we have Chinese New Year, and then Lantern Festival and then you have Qing Ming right, you have days off, and then is the Dragon Boat Festival.

May day as well, May day.

Dragon Boat, and then you've got... remind me.

Then it's Mid Autumn Festival.

Mid autumn and then national day week and then I guess that's it and then it's..

It starts all over again.

It starts all over again.

But I tell you, it's actually one of the things I really, really love about living in China because I'm quite lucky that I'm able to have Christmas off. So I got Christmas day off, but then it's only a few weeks until it's Chinese New Year, New Year is over and then it's Spring.

Yeah, so you get the best of both worlds.

I get the best of both worlds, and that's January in China is always actually a little bit exciting because you're looking forward to Chinese New Year. But if I'm in the UK I'll be just very very depressed stressed.

I love the lead up to big holidays.

Yeah.

Because after a big holiday there's always this anti climax.

Oh Yeah, and that's the problem with I would say Christmas because at least with Chinese New Year, you can start to see that spring is in the air. You can start to see that things are warming up. The flowers are starting to come out. But in the UK it's just still cold and wet, but without any of the Christmas cheer.

Yeah, I've experienced that.

So before we finish this episode, let's talk about what people do during those bank holiday weekends. That's what you call it, right? 如果星期一是一個(gè)bank holiday的話, 英國人把它叫做bank holiday weekend, 小長(zhǎng)假那種感覺, three days, what do people usually do?

To be honest, it's about the same as what Chinese people would do.

They will go traveling, so all of the roads, airports, train stations get really really busy because everyone is desperate to take advantage of having that holiday. Lots of people would stay at home and they might go out and about, generally we always criticize a bank holiday TV because it's never very interesting. They always just put on old films. And it's always the same old films every single year.

Because the TV station people they also don't really want to put in the extra work for bank holidays.

Exactly. So in the UK traditionally it's the Sound of Music that's put on every single year, they just put on the Sound of Music. I think it's because it's the long film and I don't think they have to pay that much for it.

Oh well, why change the classics? Exactly.

Okay. So let's wrap up here. If you guys have anything to add about your holidays, your holiday plans, and how do you feel about this 除夕not being a public holiday anymore. Leave us a comment in the comment section or putting a request for anything that you want us to talk about on the show.

Thank you, 安瀾, for coming to the show.

So until next time .

Will see you next time.

Bye

bye.