Article 18 of the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, revised in December 2012 and in force since July 1, 2013, says: “Family members who live apart from the elderly should often visit or greet them. Employers shall, in accordance with the relevant state provisions, guarantee the supporters’ right to home-visit leave.”
At the CCTV Spring Festival Gala of 1999, Chen Hong, Cai Guoqing, Zhang Mai and Jiang Tao sang 常回家看看, “Come Home Often.”
Under the State Council’s regulations on home leave for workers, an employee who lives apart from a spouse is given home leave once a year, for 30 days. An unmarried employee who visits his or her parents is, as a rule, given leave once a year, for 20 days.
In 2016, Henan revised its regulations on population and family planning. “After the parents of an only child reach the age of sixty, while they are in hospital for treatment, their child is given nursing leave of up to 20 days a year in total. Nursing leave counts as attendance.” Fujian grants up to 10 days a year, and Guangxi up to 15.
In January 2019, the People’s Court Daily, the newspaper of the Supreme People’s Court, reviewed the book 情理法与中国人, Feeling, Reason, Law and the Chinese. The review summed up the book’s order: “‘In accord with feeling’ is the most important, ‘in accord with reason’ comes next, and ‘in accord with law’ comes after that.”
The review added that the everyday saying 法不外乎人情, the law does not stand outside human feeling, “is not wrong.” Here 人情 means the shared feeling of an era, not personal favors.
通融 To make an exception for someone. To make things easier for another person. The Handian dictionary’s example: “He will make an exception for you.”
网开一面 To leave one side of the net open. To treat someone leniently. In the Records of the Grand Historian, Tang sees a hunter who has set nets on all four sides and prays that everything in the world will enter them. “Ah, that would take them all,” Tang says, and removes three of the nets. The lords hear of it and say: “The virtue of Tang is complete. It reaches even the birds and beasts.”
In February 2018, Apple released Three Minutes, a short film for the Chinese New Year directed by Peter Chan and shot on the iPhone X. It is based on a true story. A mother works as an attendant on a train through the holiday. When the train stops at her hometown station, her family brings her young son to the platform. They have three minutes.
The boy recites the multiplication table to the end. Until the film closes, he says nothing else.
In January 2021, during the pandemic, the General Offices of the Party Central Committee and the State Council issued a notice on 就地过年, celebrating the New Year where one is. People in low-risk areas were “encouraged to celebrate where they are, and not to travel unless necessary.” The notice offered subsidies to employers who kept migrant workers, and encouraged red envelopes for those who stayed at their posts.
The Spring Festival travel season of 2021 was expected to see 870 million trips, 70.9 percent fewer than in 2019.
In March 2015, after the Spring Festival, a survey by the Guangzhou human resources service center found that the city’s companies were short of 123,300 workers. Some companies in Guangdong reported that fewer than 60 percent of their workers had come back. The report used the phrase 有去无回, gone without returning, for workers who did not come back.
In June 2016, a Guangming Daily commentary by Chen Fang noted that one reason for overtime had again set off heated discussion online: lingdao mei zou shei gan xian zou, “the leader has not left, so who dares to leave first?”
In March 2025, Zhao Lei, a vice president of the appliance maker Midea, described the same scene to the business paper Yicai. “After work, the leader does not leave, so the employees do not leave. But the employees sit there with nothing to do.” Midea said it had issued no notice barring overtime after 6:20 p.m. It said it encourages staff to leave on time.
At the national Two Sessions in 2024, Lü Guoquan, a member of the national political advisory body and head of the general office of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, submitted a proposal on protecting workers’ lixian xiuxi quan, the right to offline rest. He suggested bringing it into law.
The proposal defined it as “the right of workers, outside statutory or agreed working hours, to refuse work contact or work matters through digital tools.” In December 2024, Xinhua reported that experts were divided. Shen Jianfeng supported the idea. Lou Yu said that overtime already requires agreement by both sides, so a new right was not needed.