Surprise, surprise! While we often laugh at how many public holiday days we have in a fiscal year (which does quite seem like A LOT), it turns out that we are indeed NOT the country with the most public holidays.
According to the World Population Review, Malaysia ranks #5 on the list with 18-24 days per year, with variation due to state-specific holidays. With long holidays for festive occasions like Chinese New Year & Hari Raya (in which our government also sometimes announces surprise, extra public holiday days), it's no wonder we're ranked so high on the list.
Our friendly neighbor Singapore ranked #73 along with a few other countries, with only 11 days a year. No wonder they're always complaining that we have too many public holidays! “Public holiday again?!?” is a common phrase heard by Malaysian employees with Singaporean colleagues.
However, if Malaysia is not at the top of the list with the most public holidays, then who is?
Drum roll…. it's Nepal!
With a whopping 35 public holiday days, Nepal is at the top of the list with a sizeable gap from #2-ranking holders Iran & Myanmar, with 26 days. This means that Nepal has a total of 9 DAYS MORE compared to Iran, that's a whole additional week off!
Alongside observing global national holidays, Nepal also honors it's patriotic history with celebrations like Prithvi Jayanti, and cultural celebrations like Maghe Sankranti among others. Here's a full list of all their public holidays.
In #4 ranking with only a 1-day difference from Iran & Myanmar, is Sri Lanka with 25 days. Other countries within the top 10 list of most public holidays include Fiji (23 days), Bangladesh & Liechenstein (22 days), followed by India & Cambodia (21 days).
On the other hand, can you guess which is the country with the LEAST public holidays? Hint: it's one of our ASEAN neighbours.
Drum roll (again)…. it's Vietnam!
Vietnam is at the bottom of the list with only 6 days of public holiday a year - so little that I can list them all out here; New Year's Day, Tet, Hung Kings Commemoration, Reunification Day, Labor Day and National Day. They don't even observe global public holidays like Christmas!
As a Malaysian, I'm truly grateful that we have 3-4x more public holidays in a year than last-place-holder, Vietnam. Here's to enjoying our holidays more and being appreciative of all the festivities we have throughout the year!
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C Chai (crystal.chaijeecheng@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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