It's Saturday night here in Beijing, and I'm getting ready to go to work tomorrow. Now, for a lot of Microsoft folks (and others in our industry to be fair) working on the weekend isn't unusual (unfortunately). Tomorrow, however, is an official work day in China.

Here's my understanding: The Chinese government realized it was a good thing to give people three day weekends; it's good for the economy since people will travel more. However, when a holiday like New Year's Day falls on a Thursday, what do you do? Easy -- give everyone Thursday and Friday off and then have them work on Sunday! This way, there's a three day weekend and there's no lost day of work!

I give the Chinese government high marks for creative thinking here. Definitely out-of-the-box.