North Temple Pagoda

Many of the holidays in China are based upon the lunar calendar.  Like the Easter holidays of the Christian world, they end up being moveable feasts when you overlay them onto the Gregorian Calendar.   The holidays may land in mid-week or on week-end and, from one year to the next, they may even land in different months.  Working people, though, like to have a predictable vacation schedule.  So  businesses and factories manage the variability by shuffling the workdays during the holiday period.

The Lunar Year of 2012 began officially on Monday, January 23.  The government-mandated holidays for China were the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  Traditionally, though, people consider the entire week to be a holiday - beginning on New Year's Eve and lasting through the fifth day, which this year would be Friday, January 27.  So no one wanted to work Thursday and Friday, January 26/27.  If you tried to make them work those days, very few would show up.  So most businesses and factories in China shuffled the days as follows:

1. Saturday, January 21 became a workday.
2. Sunday (New Year's Eve) was a normal non-working week-end day.
3. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were official non-working national holidays.
4. Thursday was a non-working day, in trade for the day of work on Saturday, January 21.
5. Friday was a non-working day, in trade for a day of work to be done on Sunday, January 29.
6. Saturday was a normal non-working week-end day.
7. Sunday, January 29, became a workday in trade for Friday, January 27.

The good news is that, as a result of all that shuffling,  people get to be off work for a full seven days-in-a-row.  The bad news is that the week before and the week after both turn into six day work weeks.

I didn't work on Saturday, January 21.  I started my holiday early.  I took a day of vacation and went to the North Temple Pagoda in Suzhou.

The North Temple Pagoda is part of a Buddhist complex in the old city of Suzhou.  It sits on the same street as the Humble Administrator's Garden, but about a three quarters of a mile to the West.  The pagoda is nine stories tall, and rises about 240 feet into the air.  In the North of the old city, it is the tallest structure around.  It is one of several buildings within the Buddhist temple complex, which is still and active place of worship.  Monks live in the temple dormitories and meditate in the adjoining gardens and walking paths.

The current version of the North Temple Pagoda was built around 400 years ago, during the Ming Dynasty.  It is not as old as the pagoda at Tiger Hill, but it is about one-and-a-half times as tall.  And it is in much better repair.  Tiger Hill Pagoda is an architectural ruin that tilts and looks to be in danger of falling over.  You are not allowed to go inside.  North Temple Pagoda is still a functioning building that you are allowed to climb to the top.  The stairs are steep and dark and booby-trapped with lots of head-bump hazards.  But once at the top, you get a great view in all directions of the old buildings of the old city of Suzhou.

All the photos above are taken from one point or another within the temple complex.  I think you can figure them out based upon the preceeding story.