The office of the National Holiday Tourism Inter-Ministerial Coordination on Wednesday started soliciting public opinion on three proposals for public holiday arrangements for 2014. The biggest controversy of the three draft schemes, in which the total amount of the holidays is the same, applies to whether China should keep its "golden week" of a seven-day National Day holidays. So far, the majority of votes online are for keeping the seven-day holiday in October.

This reflects the basic hope for longer holidays. But all three proposals circumvent a stronger public desire - to resume the week-long May Day holidays.

The Chinese have no fewer holidays than the world's average, but the public universally feel they don't have enough breaks. One of the fundamental reasons is that Chinese often face highly stressed work with long hours and overtime on top.

There are many who often work overtime in big cities. Workers in labor-intensive enterprises such as construction or textile workers routinely have to work extra hours in order to deliver the project ahead of the deadline. This seldom happens in developed countries.

People in developed countries like the US and European nations generally work less than 40 hours a week. They have enough leisure after work to alleviate fatigue.

Chinese culture to some extent favors working overtime. Many enterprises encourage their staff to give up paid leave, and public opinion emphasizes how devoted models from all fields in their job are that they even forget to eat and sleep.

Tourist attractions are always jammed when the golden week arrives. As it's the only time when the whole family is free, most are willing to join the crowd, enjoying the relaxed air nationwide in the collective holidays.

The golden week holidays of the May Day were cancelled in 2008 and dispersed into several shorter holidays. Although people gained one more day in quantity of the holidays, the quality hasn't been improved. The demand for long-period holidays of the public is high.

We propose China again add one more day to the existing holidays, paving the way for restoring the week-long May Day holidays. As a rapidly developing country, it's a reasonable pace for China to extend its holidays after six years.

The ultimate goal of economic development is improving people's living quality. Nothing is better than adding one more day to public holidays.

The working time will be reduced by 1/250, but resuming the seven-day May Day holidays will make a greater contribution to boost consumption and help Chinese laborers to get released from the long period of hard work between the Spring Festival holidays and the National Day holidays. Doing so will gain overwhelming support from the public and increase the public confidence in the country's resolution for deepening reform.