It doesn’t feel like I should be at work today. It is afterall, the second day of the Chinese New Year. Around most of East and South-East Asia, today would be a public holiday.

It also doesn’t help that I feel so lethargic and bloated still from all the food that we had – good though they had been. ;) At least the new year fell on a weekend this year. It would have sucked even more if it was during the working week.

I stumbled upon this Washington Post piece about Asian-Americans fighting for the recognition of CNY as a public holiday. Or at the very least mark it as a “day of commeration”, a day that ppl could take leave off work without any difficulties.

From the article (free registration req’d):

The Lunar New Year — which is celebrated today by more than a billion Asians around the world — presents a troubling annual dilemma for many of the country’s 12 million Asian Americans: honor your millennia-old traditions by taking the day off, or bow to the pressures of Western society by going about business as usual?

Good on them, but I doubt that this will happen in Australia – Asian-Americans have a bit more clout when you combine the number of Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese in the USA, whom all celebrate the Lunar New Year.

At least we get street festivals in Sydney and Melbourne, and smaller versions in the other capital cities. And the banks give out packs of empty “red packets” to Chinese customers for their use. I guess, a little bit of recognition is better than nothing at all. :)