The government's unusual announcement of a five-day holiday from Oct. 6-10 not only constitutes a challenge to the public transportation authorities, especially Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA), but has also placed hospitals, patients and parents in chaos as their plans and arrangements have to be changed or even canceled.
The unexpected extension of the holiday announced by the Central Personnel Administration (CPA) on Friday has seriously disrupted TRA's passenger transportation plan for the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Friday, Oct. 6 this year, and the following Saturday and Monday.
A TRA official said the tickets for the three-day holiday have been sold out, and the unexpected extended holiday will result in many passengers returning the tickets they already booked. In addition, the TRA has to arrange additional trains for Oct.10, the national day and the last of the five-day holidays. "This is virtually a mission impossible!" the official lamented.
Nevertheless, the TRA yesterday announced that if passengers want to return the tickets for Oct. 7-10 trains, it will not charge a normal service fee of NT$13 for each ticket returned.
Early yesterday morning, quite a few patients called hospitals asking if the medical services would remain normal during the five-day holidays. National Taiwan University Hospital and Taipei city hospitals won't make a final decision until Monday, while major private hospitals such as Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Mackay Memorial Hospital and the Cathay General Hospital have decided to offer normal services during the holidays.
Some nurses at hospitals complained that if the Cabinet announced the extension of the holiday earlier, they could arrange a vacation in advance. But now it is difficult to book hotel rooms or train tickets, and therefore the holiday is virtually not a holiday to them.
Local enterprises complained that they were caught off guard by the CPA's announcement, and don't have enough time to work out alternative plans for maintaining operations during the upcoming five-day holiday.
A trading company secretary said his company has a lot of cargo awaiting customs clearance on Monday, Oct. 9, and therefore will suffer seriously if Oct. 9 is made a day off.
In addition, a man working at the Taipei City Government originally planned to take his family members to enjoy a trip to eastern Taiwan on Oct. 14 and 15, but the plan has to be aborted because his son should go to school on Oct. 14 to cover the class skipped on Oct. 9.
Also yesterday, Yeh Juei-yu, a CPA spokesman, said that the five-day national holiday from Oct. 6-10 -- announced for the first time Friday when the Executive Yuan decided to connect two national festivals -- was formed in response to public demand.
Yeh Juei-yu made the explanation in response to criticism of the long holiday made by private enterprises, which argued that the decision to wrap both the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Oct. 6 this year, and the National Double Ten Day into one holiday, was made in haste.
Yeh noted it is unusual that this year two of Taiwan's most important festivals come so close to each other.
The Mid-Autumn Festival, also called the Moon Festival, falls on every fifteenth day of the eighth month according to the Chinese lunar calendar -- usually around mid- or late September according to the Gregorian calendar. This year, the festival comes later because of an extra month, a"leap July" in the lunar calendar, Yeh explained.
Since there is only one workday during the period Oct. 6-10, which includes a weekend, the CPA has decided to exchange that workday with the following Saturday to make a five-day holiday possible, after requests were made so that longer visits home could be arranged, Yeh said.
Speaker Wang Jin-pyng of the Legislative Yuan yesterday also noted that the flexible five-day holiday was announced in haste. He called for the government to work out effective countermeasures to make such a flexible holiday translated into a boon to all, not just a bane to local enterprises and transportation authorities.
Premier Su Tseng-chang noted that there are still 10 days away from the five-day holiday, allowing various sectors to make necessary preparations.
Su also denied allegations that the unexpected announcement of the coming five-day holiday was designed to undermine a soft-strike plan to be carried out on Oct. 9 by the massive campaign to depose President Chen Shui-bian over a spate of corruption scandals surrounding himself, his family members and close aides.
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