Public holidays in Menghe

Traditional Jesasang ancestral offering table set up for the Chusŏk festival in autumn.

There are a total of 10 public holidays in the Socialist Republic of Menghe, which collectively add up to 17 days off over the course of a year. On these days, government offices, state-owned enterprises, and Menghean embassies overseas are closed. Private businesses are not required to close, but most recognize public holidays anyway, and some grant extended holidays for Menghean New Year. The four Southwestern Semi-Autonomous Provinces also have two additional public holidays (four days off) for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

Menghean public holidays are divided into two types: Holidays (휴일 / 休日, hyuil) and Festivals (명절 / 名節, myŏngjŏl). Holidays are patriotic celebrations honoring events in modern history, and are based on the Gregorian calendar, while Festivals are traditional celebrations based on the Menghean lunisolar calendar. Traditional festivals will not fall on the same Gregorian date every year, and extended holidays may be adapted to better align with weekends. To clarify these policies, the Ministry of Civil Affairs announces the official annual schedule of holidays one year in advance, and publishes projected holiday dates online for the coming twenty years.

National holidays

English name	Menghean name	Date	Comments	Days off
Spring Festival	正朝 / 정조 jŏngjo	1st day of the 1st lunar month	New Year's festival in the Hemithean lunisolar calendar.	3
Tomb Sweeping Festival	寒食 / 한식 hansik	first Saturday in April	Traditional holiday in which families provide gifts and offerings to departed ancestors. Also known as the pure brightness festival or tomb-sweeping day. Originally celebrated on the 105th day after the winter solstice.	1
Labor Day	勞動日 / 로동일 rodong-il	first Monday in May	Holiday dedicated to the achievements of the labor movement and the Menghean socialist movement, as well as the indispensable role of workers in Menghe's economic growth. Originally celebrated on May 1st.	1
Dragon Boat Festival	龍船節 / 룡선절 ryongsŏnjŏl	first Friday in June	Traditional festival celebrating loyalty and filial piety, usually falling in late May or early June. Also known as the "Double 5 festival" for the lunisolar date on which it falls.	1
Victory Day	勝利日 / 승리일 sŭngri-il	July 27th	Commemorates the end of the Menghean War of Liberation and the restoration of Menghe's independence. Since 1990, Menghe has held its main military parade on National Day, using the holiday as an opportunity to showcase new equipment.	1
Memorial Day	顯忠日 / 현충일 hyŏnjung-il	July 28	Dedicated to Menghean soldiers who lost their lives in recent military conflicts, most notably the Pan-Septentrion War, Menghean War of Liberation, and Innominadan Crisis. Originally observed on the 1st Monday in July.	3
National Day	建國紀念日 / 건국 기념일 gŏnguk ginyŏm-il	August 2nd	Celebrates the formal establishment of the Federative Republic of Menghe in 1901, and the end of the Three States Period.	3
Mid-Autumn Festival	秋夕 / 추석 chusŏk	15th day of the 8th lunar month	Traditional harvest festival celebrated during the full moon of the 8th lunar month, usually around the autumn equinox (mid-September to early October).	1
Revolution Day	革命日 / 혁명일 hyŏgmyŏng-il	December 21st	The anniversary of the Decembrist Revolution. Celebrated with speeches from political leaders, followed by a torchlight parade at Heroes' Square in Donggyŏng, the epicenter of the coup. Combined with Dongji to produce the five-day Yusin Week.	2
Dongji Festival	冬至 / 동지 dongji	Winter solstice Dec. 21, 22, or 23	The traditional winter solstice holiday, which falls on December 21st, 22nd, or 23rd. Combined with Revolution Day to produce the five-day Yusin Week.	3

Scheduling of holidays

Background

While some Menghean public holidays are based on the Gregorian calendar (e.g., Victory Day on July 27th), others are customarily based on the lunisolar calendar (e.g., the Mid-Autumn Festival on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month) or in relation to the winter solstice (e.g., Dongji and Hansik). This means that the calendar dates of some holidays differ from year to year, as do the weekdays on which they fall.

In addition to complicating planning, this also complicates travel. Many traditional holidays celebrate family unity and filial piety, and it is culturally important for adult children to return to their parents' homes to celebrate. During the Menghean economic miracle, large numbers of internal migrant workers moved from the countryside to the cities in search of low-wage work, meaning that large numbers of people require a day or more for travel in each direction.

The NSCCs which convened in July of 2000, 2001, and 2002 held debates on whether to adjust the process for determining the dates of holidays. Among the main issues was whether it was acceptable to schedule traditional festivals on a basis other than the lunisolar calendar. Eventually, the elected delegates and consulted religious authorities concluded that the Dragon Boat Festival and Cold Food Festival did not have an "important cultural basis" for using the lunisolar dates, which were originally approximate; whereas Dongji, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the Lunar New Year should follow the lunisolar calendar or winter solstice. Memorial Day, originally July 1st, was also moved to the first Monday in July, while other important national anniversaries were kept. The first year to use the new holiday dating system was 2005.

Spring festival

Three public holidays are mandated for the Spring Festival: lunar new year's eve, lunar new year's day, and the day after. For example, in 2020 the lunar new year fell on January 25, so January 24, 25, and 26 were public holidays that year.

Tomb-sweeping festival

Originally the 105th day after Dongji, the tomb-sweeping festival (also called the cold food festival or pure brightness festival) is officially observed the first Saturday in April. The preceding Friday is a public holiday to allow workers to travel home. Non-essential companies with weekend working hours are also required to close down during Saturday and Sunday; companies which ordinarily take weekends off are unaffected.

Labor day

The 2003 Regulation on National Holidays originally left Labor Day on May 1st, to align with international labor day. In the wake of the Ummayan Civil War and the ideological schism with Maverica and Innominada, the National Assembly amended the law to schedule Labor day on the first Monday in May. This was officially intended to encourage travel and rest, but it was likely also intended to distance Menghe from the labor-oriented variety of socialism in Maverica and Innominada, now rivals.

Dragon boat festival

The scheduling of the dragon boat festival is similar to the scheduling of the tomb-sweeping festival: originally held on the fifth day of the fifth lunisolar month, it is officially held on the first Friday in June. Unlike the tomb-sweeping festival, the official regulations on the dragon boat festival do not require businesses to reduce their weekend hours.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Unlike the tomb sweeping and dragon boat festivals, the mid-autumn festival in Menghe is still observed on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. This ensures that the festival takes place during an evening with a full moon, as many customs woven into the festival revolve around the full moon and the lunar cycle. Adjacent days are not taken off, nor is a separate day off created when the full moon falls on a Saturday or Sunday. Instead of traveling home, people are encouraged to celebrate this holiday together with their friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

Weekend shifting

One challenge with the list above is that Menghean holidays either fall on a specific date in the Gregorian calendar, or fall on a specific date in the Menghean lunisolar calendar. Thus, depending on the year, they may fall during a weekend, or in the middle of a week. The latter situation was particularly vexing for domestic travelers, as it is customary in Menghe to spend traditional festivals in one's hometown with family, requiring a day before or after for long-distance travel. During the early 2000s, solicited public input on how to remedy this situation, and determined that setting holidays on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays would not properly honor either national anniversaries or traditional customs. Instead, NSCC delegates proposed the unusual step of moving weekends to fall adjacent to holidats and festivals, not the other way around. The National Assembly drafted a bill on this basis, and passed it into law in 2004, effective January 1st of the following year. It set the following requirements:

• The weekends closest to the Pure Brightness Festival should be rearranged to create a 3-day break, with the festival day in the middle.
• The weekends closest to the Mid-Autumn Festival should be rearranged to create a 3-day break, with the festival day in the middle.
• Revolution Day and the Dongji Festival get 3 public holidays between them, and the two weekends closest to them should be rearranged to create a 7-day break. There should be at least one off day between Dongji and any day of work.
• The Lunar New Year gets 3 public holidays, and the two weekends closest to it should be rearranged to create a 7-day break. There should be at least one off day between the Lunar New Year and any day of work.

Rearrangement of weekends means that schools and businesses close down or convert to reduced hours on the weekdays converted to weekends, but make up for this by moving work to the weekend converted to a work day. Where public transit runs different weekday and weekend schedules, the schedules of the moved days are also flipped. This creates some confusion for foreign businesses working with Menghean enterprises, as their weekends no longer line up, and requires special effort in scheduling weekly service or billing; on the plus side, however, it does mean that families have adequate time to get together before holidays.

In the years that followed, these extended holidays were also found to generate higher domestic tourism spending, as many newly-minted middle-class consumers spent the long off weeks traveling on domestic vacations. To encourage this practice, the Ministry of Civil Affairs recommended the following changes, which were implemented in 2015 for the following year:

• The national holiday for Labor Day should be moved from May 1st to the first Monday in May. Celebrations may still be held on May 1 outside of work hours.
• Constitution Day is no longer celebrated as a national holiday (its day off is moved to the July-August National Week).
• Memorial Day is moved from July 1st to July 28th.
• The 7-day period between July 27th (Victory Day) and August 2nd (National Day) is converted to a continous 7-day holiday. Of these holidays, 5 are public holidays, and the remaining 2 are taken from the nearest weekends.

These extended holiday periods exist to allow workers time to travel home and see their extended families, an important tradition in Menghean culture. Over the course of the Menghean economic miracle, millions of rural working-age men and women left their home villages to find work in the cities, and only return home during extended holidays. Menghe's high-speed rail system was specifically designed to handle the elevated volume of travelers before and after important family holidays.

Regional variations

As part of their special status, the four semi-autonomous provinces of Uzeristan, Daristan, Siyadag, and Argentan-in-Menghe are given additional public holidays. These fall on the Shahidic holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, and are celebrated with one and three days off, respectively. Like traditional Menghean holidays, these are based on a lunar calendar, albeit on the distinct Shahidic lunar calendar, and their exact Gregorian dates vary.

Flag raising regulations

Fireworks in Sunju celebrating Menghe's 29th National Day in 2017.

On Hyuil holidays (Liberation Day, Labor Day, National Day, Memorial Day, and Revolution Day), citizens are encouraged to fly the national flag outside their houses as a show of patriotism. The strictness of "encouragement" has varied over the course of the 20th century; during the Pan-Septentrion War, flying the national flag on patriotic holidays was made compulsory, and during the Disciplined Society Campaign of the mid-1990s overzealous Party officials subjected noncompliant households to public criticism.

Today, failure to fly the flag on these days is not punishable by legal action, but may be met with social criticism from one's peers. In rural counties, teams of Youth Vanguard and Joguk Janyŏ still circulate during national holidays to "investigate" any houses not flying the national flag and distribute flags from their own supply, but this is rare in urban areas. As an alternative or supplement to the national flag, especially patriotic citizens may display the portrait of Choe Sŭng-min or the flag of the Greater Menghean Empire, depending on the nature of the holiday.

See also

• Age reckoning in Menghe
• Religion in Menghe
• Government of Menghe
• Education in Menghe