"Worth Coming to Work Early"...Winning a Vacation Right After the Holiday?

Winning a Vacation Voucher on the First Day Back after the Holiday...

A Fortunate Employee in Her Twenties

Goes Viral Online... Netizens Say "More Enviable Than Cash"

The story of an employee at a Chinese food company winning a "10-day paid vacation voucher" in a prize drawing on the first day back to work after the Lunar New Year (Chunjie) holiday has gone viral online.

On March 2, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that a video of a New Year prize event held at a food company in Hunan Province, China, has garnered a high number of views and "likes" on social networking services (SNS).

The event was held on the first day employees returned to work after the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday. For the occasion, Zhang Zilong, manager of the company’s SNS department, set up a raffle box at the office entrance for arriving employees.

The lucky winner was a female employee in her twenties, surnamed Tao, who was the first to arrive at work and participate in the drawing. She won the top prize: a "10-day paid vacation voucher."

A promotional banner targeting Chinese tourists is displayed on Myeongdong Street in Jung-gu, Seoul ahead of China’s biggest holiday, the Lunar New Year. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

Immediately after winning, Ms. Tao shared a screenshot of booking a train ticket back to her hometown and expressed her delight, saying, "It was worth coming to work early." She announced that she would use the additional vacation to spend the holiday again with her family.

In addition to the paid leave voucher, various other prizes were prepared for the event, including cash ranging from 10 yuan to 1,000 yuan, 1 gram of pure gold, and a tablet PC. However, local netizens showed their envy for the 10-day paid vacation voucher, commenting, "Vacation is more enviable than cash," and "Does that company have any hiring plans?"

Chinese companies frequently hold incentive or prize events after the Lunar New Year holiday each year to boost employee morale. Previously, a 3D printer company in Shenzhen made headlines by offering a 100-gram gold bar as a prize.

This year, the Lunar New Year fell on February 17, with the official holiday period lasting nine days, from February 15 to 23.

On February 23, China's Ministry of Transport announced that as of February 21, the 20th day of the special transport period known as Chunyun, there had been a total of 5.08 billion interregional trips. By mode of transportation, road travel accounted for the majority with 4.76 billion trips, followed by railways (258 million), air travel (47.52 million), and waterways (19.99 million).

In particular, on February 20 alone, interregional travel reached 352,999,000, setting a record high and marking a 12.3% increase compared to the same day during last year's Chunyun period.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.