National Holidays

by Sumana Saparamadu

Holidays have begun. April vacation was a short holiday limited to two weeks. You have a long holiday in August and another in December.

In addition to these school holidays, there are other holidays in the year which all of you will enjoy. They are national holidays for the whole nation. In calendars and diaries these days are marked Public, Bank and Mercantile holidays. On these days all government offices, schools, banks, shops, business houses and company offices will be closed.

Sri Lanka has many national holidays. Sri Lanka has more national holidays than any other country.

Sri Lanka has 12 Poya or full-moon holidays and an extra day for Vesak 13 days in all.

Then, there are the New Year and other festival holidays. The Sinhala and Tamil New Year day and the day before are holidays which makes 15 days. Thai Pongal, Holy Prophet's birthday and Christmas day are holidays and brings the total upto 18 days. Independence Day, which falls on February 4 and Labour Day on May 1 are also holidays, bringing the total of National Holidays to 20 days.

In addition to these 20 national holidays, there are five holidays which are public and bank holidays but not mercantile holidays.

They are Good Friday, Maha Shivarathri, Deepavali, Ramazan and Hajji festivals. Employees of these faiths (religions) are entitled to a holiday on the days connected with their religion.

Sri Lankans enjoy more holidays than people in most countries.

Hong Kong and South Korea in Asia and Argentina and Colombia in South America are the countries closest to us. These four countries all have 18 holidays each. Bangladesh has 16, Japan 15 and Indonesia 13 holidays each but Pakistan only 8 days.

Spain has the most number of holidays in Europe - 14 days in the year. Austria is a close second with 13 holidays. Sweden and France have 11 days each and Belgium 10 days. Britain has only eight national holidays and we in Sri Lanka have 20.

Switzerland, one of the world's richest countries, has only seven national holidays.