Really, I just don't get it

Okay, not whining, really this's just bizarre. So in the last two weekends we've had a Saturday off as well as our regular Sunday, and then a Saturday off but we had to work Sunday. I think I finally have the reasons, see if you can follow along.

Christmas fell on a Thursday this year, so did New Year's day. Christmas here is Constitution Day, but I dunno if anyone really cares about the distinction. It's a day off. The government of Taiwan decided (apparently about the Tuesday before Christmas) that to make for an actual holiday, everyone would also get Friday after Christmas-Constitution Day off.

To me, this's ironic 'cause that extra day off, Friday, would mean the most to ex-pats from the U.S., Australia, Canada, Wisconsin, where they celebrate Christmas. More to the point, it's a big, important, childhood-fixated holiday where it's weird to be away from family and weirder to be in another country. But, guess what, we didn't get that day off or the one after New Year's. Hmm.

BUT, the entire country had to make that day up, I guess. So every school kid, office worker, postal employee, and fire dog had to work the 10th and 17th of January (the last two Saturdays) to make up those days. I keep saying, those aren't holidays, those are loans. They don't even make up typhoon days here, I dunno why those two holiday days are so vital. Anyway, because the kids all had to go to school on the 10th and the 17th, we got the days off! Woo hoo! BUT!

The Lunar New Year, also called Chinese New Year ('cause that's the dominant population celebrating it) falls on the 26th or 27th. Whatever day it is, it means everyone's supposed to go back to work on the 30th... which is a Friday. SO (and I'm using a lot of capitals because I just can't emphasize these turns of fortune and logic with enough vigor) instead of going back to work for one day, we have to make the day up in advance! So we had to work this last Sunday.

Now, I'm all for not working one day in the middle of a week's vacation, but the result of this jimmying the schedule meant that kids went to school all week, then went to school on Saturday, apparently some of them had to be there at 7:00 a.m. (I don't know if that's normal) and many had finals that day, and THEN they had to come to English class on Sunday!

I'm really glad I didn't understand this until basically after the fact, otherwise I'd 've been afraid for my life. I mean, if somehow you could force U.S. students to school on a Saturday after a full week, and then handed them off to an ill-trained ESL teacher who they consider to be less important than say, gym class, you'd expect them to enact some scene out of an eighties hijinks movie where you see the teacher hung upside down, wrapped in duct tape, with an apple in his mouth, right?

The kids here seemed to take it in stride; it's just what happens to them occasionally, but I'd 've been halfway to panicked wondering how bad it was gonna be. But they were some of my smallest classes, so no biggie.

The educational bit for people back home: it seems like there's a complete lack of planning when it comes to, well, planning, here. Apparently, no one knew this get-Friday-after-Christmas-off-work-some-Saturday-to-be-named-later thing was gonna happen until December. I mean, no one could really explain it until after it happened, or so it seems to me. I don't think they really had it planned ahead, like most government and school schedules I've ever even heard of in the States. That's a heck of a thing to learn on the fly, let me tell you.

So, we're about to go into a week off. And boy, is time crawling. I could really use the down time. I think our complaint is, we thought we'd be able to visit a place or two. See a little of the country and get outta Taipei for a while. But the economic problems have hit here, too, and many people aren't flying anywhere for the big holiday, they're flooding the rest of the country, so it's creating sticker shock for us. I've heard recommendations to visit Hualien or Cingjing 'cause it's got lots of hotels and things to do, or it's quiet. But by the time I check with a travel agent, the price is 15,000 NT or 30,000 for a night or two. That's $500 to a thousand. Ick.

So, it looks like we might be exploring more of Taipei than we'd originally planned. Personally, I'm fine with that. There's still a lot we haven't seen and places we haven't gone. Marie might be more disappointed we aren't seeing more of the country and staying somewhere different, but it's what we have right now. And we're already talking potential trips next fall, so maybe not so bad to just have a week away from kids to get set for another couple of months.

Oh, and happy Inauguration Day everyone! We have been able to follow along on CNN and BBC.