China may increase the number of legal holidays and include some traditional festivals, such as the Tomb-Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival, as part of the country's legal holidays, sources said.

The Chinese government has formed a preliminary plan on the new legal holiday arrangement and the plan will be released "in the near future". After that public opinion will be sought on the Internet.

As an ancient country with a civilized history of more than 5,000 years, some traditional festivals represent part of the Chinese nation's cultural heritage. However, current legal holiday arrangement only include the Spring Festival.

Cai Jiming, professor with Tsinghua University and member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said that traditional festivals as legal holiday would help reserve the folk customs.

"The nation's traditional culture will find its way to develop, " Cai said.

Feng Jicai, a renowned Chinese writer who upholds folk customs, said the cultural meaning of Chinese traditional festivals should be restored and emphasized, especially with increasing globalization.

Chinese people currently have ten days of legal holiday. Nine days are for May Day, the National Day and the Spring Festival, with three days for each, and one day for New Year's Day.

However, the weekends on one side of the first three holidays are designated as two working days, and people enjoy two days off on the working days, which makes the holiday a consecutive seven days. Millions of Chinese travel during the holidays, so earning them the name "golden weeks".

Regarded as one of the most important days on the Chinese calendar, the Tomb-Sweeping Day, or Qingming festival, which usually occurs on April 4 or 5 each year, was established by a Chinese emperor in memory of a loyal official who sacrificed himself to save the emperor's life more than 2,500 years ago.

The day gradually became a traditional occasion for paying homage to ancestors and departed family members.

The Dragon Boat Festival has been celebrated for thousands of years to commemorate Qu Yuan, a great Chinese patriotic poet, who lived in the state of Chu during the Warring States period (475 B.C. to 221 B.C.). He drowned himself in the Miluo River in today's Hunan Province in 278 B.C., on fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, hoping his death would alert the king to revitalize the kingdom.

The tradition arose that on the day of his death dragon boat races would be held and people should eat "zongzi", glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves.

The Mid-Autumn festival, which falls on the 15th day of the eighth month on the lunar calendar, is considered an occasion for reunion of family members and loved ones. On the occasion, they would eat moon cakes, light lanterns while enjoying the full moon - an auspicious symbol of abundance, harmony and luck.

The festival was flavored by the legend of Chang'e, a lonely fairy on the moon. According to the legend, she was the beautiful wife of Hou Yi, a hero who shot down nine suns scorching the earth but was slain by his apprentice Feng Meng. Threatened by the murderer, Chang'e drank an elixir and flew to the moon.

China introduced the "Golden week" holidays in 1999, in a bid to boost domestic consumption.

It was reported that tourism revenue has increased from 14.1 billion yuan (1.76 billion U.S. dollars) during the National Day holiday in 1999 to 64.2 billion yuan during the "Golden week" this October.

Statistics also showed that the year 2001 alone saw tourist numbers reach 780 million, much higher than the figure of 240 million in 1989. While China's outbound tourists rose to 12.13 million in 2001, a big jump from 3 million in the early 1990s.

But after several years' experience, complaints about overcrowding, poor service, a scarcity of hotel rooms, and damage to scenic spots, especially historic sites, during the "Golden Week" holidays have spurred debate over the merits of the week-long holiday concept.

Last year, Cai Jiming proposed shortening the National Day and May Day holidays from three days to one day and distributing the days to celebrate four traditional festivals - the Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Day, Tomb-Sweeping Day, and New Year's Eve.

Other Chinese scholars have also reiterated their belief that the important traditional Chinese festivals should be made public holidays.

"The current holiday system does not accord with the long-standing customs of Chinese people," said Liu Quili, President of the Chinese Folklore Society.

Huang Tao, an associate professor of the People's University of China, said the most effective measures to protect cultural festivals were to make the traditional festivals legal holidays to enable more people to understand the importance of tradition.

(Xinhua News Agency November 7, 2007)