What I understand is if a holiday falls on a week-end, it is not reported to the next working day, so it’s “lost” (please correct me if I’m wrong).
Knowing all this, all the holidays based on Gregorian calendar are pretty straightforward.
What I’m not sure of are the other holidays, and especially Tomb Sweeping Day (aka Qingming). It is supposed to be the 15th day after the Vernal Equinox (= Spring Equinox). Wikipedia has a list of these Qingming days through the years. If you look at the one for 2013, you will see it’s April 4th (Thu). But if you go to the 2013 holidays calendar, you will see we had not only April 4th off, but also April 5th! Why is that?
From some discussions with Taiwanese friends, a guess is that for every “family holidays” (a very obscure term for me, but I understand it only includes Chinese new Year, Qingming and Mid-Autumn Festival), if the holiday falls on a Thursday, then the Friday will be off as well and made up by working on a Saturday before or after the holiday. Am I correct?
I am doing some computer programming, and I would like to find a way to compute Taiwan holidays automatically, without having to input them manually. Hence that topic
In that case, can you point me to the correct government website for National Public Holidays in Taiwan? Cause from what you say, the DGPA is only for Government workers, right?
Yes, but I don’t think there’s a make-up Saturday for Qingming. It’s more of an established tradition. In the days of working Saturdays 4/3 was even a holiday if I remember right, “Woman’s and Children’s Day”
The make-up Saturdays thing is decided case-by-case. You could guesstimate but I doubt automate
Most follow the calendar set by the DGPA, public or private, so that is your best choice. It is generally considered “best suggestion” for private enterprises. See here: forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopi … 5&t=120765
Yes it’s lost. According to our labor law, employees can be asked to work up to 5.5 days per week. However most of us only work 5 days per week now. So according to the officials, these holidays are lost to compensate that. (Yes, that’s their logic.)
It’s actually a special case. April 4th is another holiday (Children’s Day), so we had two holidays falling on the same date this year. That would generate an extra dayoff at the following day. This rarely happens so many people don’t understand it.
There is no fixed rule on this part. As mentioned above, it is to be determined by the government case-by-case. I suggest you list it as the a program limitation, just like you can’t predict typhoon dayoffs.
Thanks a lot poorjar for your explanations! It makes everything a little bit more clear
OK, but this Children’s Day is a National Holidays since 2011 (source). But look at 2012: April 4th fell on a Wednesday, but the government didn’t give the Thursday off.
Do you mean April 5th was off in 2013 because it was a Friday (hence this would generate a 4 days week-end)?
If, for a given year, April 4th was falling on a Tuesday, would the government give the Monday (3rd) off?
After some research, it seems that government officials were confused in 2012 because overlapping holidays rarely happened. Therefore they decided to combine them in 2012. However later they received many complaints so they passed a new law: If Children’s day and Qingming ever overlaps again, that would result in two days off. That’s why April 5th in 2013 is a day off. According to the new law, if both holidays falls on April 4th, then April 3rd should be a day off. However if April 4th is Thursday, then April 5th would be a day off instead. This is what happened in 2013.
Be forewarned, to think deeply of these things is to embark on a perilous and tortuous journey.
A holiday on the isle of Formosa is like a sprinkling of frost on the ground on the turn of a new day, the gossamer flap of a monarch butterfly across your visage, a thing to be enjoyed for it’s fleeting and unique nature. A gift from the Gods upon us hapless mortals.
You are overanalyzing things and trying to make it fit into a programming schedule. Holidays don’t work that way in Taiwan. there are some set days off and then the government negotiates extra days like the April 5th that has confused you to allow people to have 4 day weekends. You might be able to guess what the holidays are but you never know the complete schedule until the gov’t releases the holiday schedule.
