The Golden Week in Japan

This calender is from timeanddate.com.

From the end of April to the first week of May is called " the Golden Week" in Japan.

We have consecutive national holidays and many people may combine paied vacations to national holidays in that week, then comes out the long vacation about a week.

This year, April 29th, Wednesday, is "Showa day"and May 3rd through May 6th, Sunday through Wednesday, are also national holidays, so if a person takes paid vacations from Thirsday to Friday twice, he or she gets 12 days vacation.

I have already touched upon April 29th "Showa day" and May 4th "Midori no Hi; Greenery day" in my previous post, please check it out.  So let me explain the rest of national holidays, from May 3rd to May 6th.

May 3rd and May 5th are also national holidays but May 6th is not always a national holiday, the details are as follows:

-May 3rd : Constitution day; to remind and celebrate the enactment of the current constitution of Japan, oriented to a fair and peaceful society.

-May 4th : Greenery day; "Midori no Hi" is described in my previous post, Showa Day, please check it out. 

-May 5th : Children's day; to celebrate or wish children's growth and to thank for their mothers.  This day used to be a boy's festival, just like a girl's festival on March 3rd.

-May 6th : a substituted holiday for May 3rd; this year May 3rd is Sunday.  Whenver a national holiday meets Sunday, the following weekday will be substituted as a national holiday.

This substituted holiday is one of the activities to achieve so called "work-life balance" for hard working Japanese people, who hesitate to take paid vacations.

The reasons are a little complicated and someday I will discuss this topic on my post if I find a good article to be introduced about the characteristics of Japanese people on working style.