Opinion | Time to end the massive chaos of the 'golden week' holidays
The 'golden week' holidays are the only time many millions get a chance to travel - which means chaos and massive overcrowding
Mainlanders like to compare being caught in throngs of people, all jostling to get through a crowded place, to making their favourite dish - boiling dumplings in hot water.
That comparison is a fitting metaphor for the nightmarish experience of tens of millions of holidaymakers who packed the nation's motorways, trains and airports during the week-long National Day holiday, which ended yesterday.
Online postings of pictures, along with state media reports, painted a picture of holiday mayhem on an unprecedented scale. The country's main roads were so packed, they appeared to be sprawling car parks.
Major tourism sites were so crowded that some visitors could see little more than the backs of people right in front of them.
There were plenty of horror stories of people being stranded, on top of mountains and other places, for hours without food or drink, only for them to then be ripped off by unscrupulous businesses. As holidaymakers recover from their vacations, many of which turned into nightmares, internet users and state media have started a new round of soul-searching over the holiday system. It is high time they did.
The central government introduced annual week-long "golden" holidays in 1999, after the Asian Financial Crisis, as a way to boost mainland consumer spending and fuel economic growth.
But mainlanders have long seen that the negatives of such holidays greatly outweigh the positives, as several hundred million trips are made during just seven or eight days.
