Starting today, the silly season will be upon us, seriously. Those who haven't left to join their families for the annual family reunion dinner tomorrow are on their way and those who get in their way, watch out.

In the United States, the season is defined as roughly the period between Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday of November) and the first week in January when things go a little slow before they come to a kind of a halt in the Christmas week.

In China, that's something like a long lunch break. The silly season here is serious stuff.

It started in earnest about two weeks ago when the media started carrying the ubiquitous pictures and stories of migrant workers heading home (packed transport services, men going for tests to ensure that they are not carrying any sexually-transmitted disease and, once they reach home, subjecting their children to paternity tests to ensure that they are their progeny).

It will end sometime after the Lantern Festival (February 12, the 15th day of the first month of the lunar year), which is when the country begins limping back to normal that's a good month.

For expatriates like me and many readers of China Daily, silly season means when you can't get a ticket to anywhere unless you booked one even before you arrived in China.

I mean no offence. The Spring Festival is a glorious tradition going back thousands of years, where even the most indifferent attend the family gathering, hong bao are given out, the dinners are long and tables heavy, the bai jiu flows and there is the same spirit you find at Christmas in other countries. For me, too, it's a chance to go visit my mother and catch up with old friends.

But for the sixth-biggest economy, the third-largest trading nation, the "factory of the world," a country which is a major trading partner of the European Union, the United States, Japan and the ASEAN, does it make economic sense to be shut down more than once a year?

I refer, of course, to the (relatively abbreviated) May Day and National Day holidays.

Spring and autumn, by common consensus, are the most pleasant times to visit most parts of China and are the most popular periods for conventions and trade shows.

And it is right in these peak periods that we miss out on tourism and trade. Foreigners are warned not to visit China then because the whole country is on the move and they can't get in anywhere edgeways (the Great Wall seems to be built of people and the Forbidden City far more tempting to tourists than the apple was in Eden); and businessmen keep away because, well, it's the only thing to do.

So for two full weeks and add a few days before and after economic activity, which is at its peak in developed countries (they take a long break in between for summer), comes to a standstill.

The "Golden Week" holidays were introduced by the government in the late 1990s to stimulate spending the worry was that the country was too reliant on fixed-asset investment and exports for growth.

But as the revised GDP figures for 2004 show, the services industry was robust and accounted for most of the increased economic activity that year. After all, if patrons in Hangzhou are willing to fork out up to 30,000 yuan a table for a Lunar New Year reunion dinner, surely there's someone willing to part with their cash.

So why not phase out these two week-long holidays and let people decide when they want to take leave and go on holiday?

That would surely ensure that spending would be spread out over a longer period and make it more comfortable for all. And ease the crushing rush on transport and at tourist spots. And ensure a fuller calendar for foreign tourists and businessmen.

Finally, to declare my interest: It's tough being a journalist when nothing much is happening. After all, there are only so many pictures and stories of crowded trains and overcrowded scenic spots you can run.

For those of you who enjoy the long breaks and think I'm a holiday-pooper, here's the real reason for this column: After having addressed subjects as weighty and serious as service standards and Western names for Chinese people, I had nothing else to write about it is the silly season, after all.
 
(China Daily by Ravi S. Narasimhan January 20, 2006)