ON THE MATTER OF PUBLIC HOLIDAYS

Hawaii today celebrates King Kamehameha the First Day as a public holiday. Next Monday, June 19, or Juneteenth, is a Federal holiday. However, 22 states, including Hawaii, do not recognize this as a public holiday. Four of these will begin to honor this day next year, not Hawaii. Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery. Here are the Hawaii holidays, and note three that only we have:

New Year’s Day: 1st day in January
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: 3rd Monday in January
Presidents’ Day: 3rd Monday in February
Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Day: 26th day in March
Good Friday: Friday before Easter
Easter: Calculating Easter
Memorial Day: Last Monday in May
King Kamehameha I Day: 11th day in June
Independence Day: 4th day in July
Statehood Day: 3rd Friday in August
Labor Day: 1st Monday in September
Veterans’ Day: 11th day in November
Thanksgiving Day: 4th Thursday in November
Christmas: 25th day in December

There are 11 paid Federal holidays, plus every fourth year, January 20, Inauguration Day, but as a paid off-day only in DC, Maryland and Virginia.

The problem about comparing holidays with other countries is that there are inconsistencies regarding a variety of factors. Wikipedia has a list, in holidays/year:

35 Nepal
32 Myanmar
26 Iran
25 Sri Lanka
20-22 Liechtenstein
22 Bangladesh, Egypt
21 Cambodia, India
19 Argentina
18-20 Malaysia
11 China, France, Israel, Kosovo, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, USA
10 Belgium
8-10 UK
8 or 9 Ecuador

Switzerland has the least, with 7, but goes up to 15, depending on where you live. Read this article to appreciate the complexity.

Then, there is another list which says Cambodia has the most public holidays with 28. And another that says Nepal only has 30. But added, people there normally work 6 days/week. So you can see how it is difficult to determine which country is most generous.

Here some interesting comparisons regarding hours worked /week/country:

Longest workweek in hours.

54 Mauritania and Tanzania
53 Egypt
52 South Korea (not listed in this source, but another)
51 Bangladesh, Gambia, Senegal
50 Qatar, Burkina Faso, Lesotho
49 Cambodia, Liberia
48 Seven countries

Shortest workweek in hours.

29 Australia, Reunion
30 Micronesia, Iraq, Netherlands
31 Somalia, Kazakhstan, Rwanda
33 Norway, UK
34 Germany, Israel, Argentina, Belgium, Denmark
35 Switzerland, Ecuador, Chad

However, I checked about Australia, and while there seems to be a trend towards a 4-day (32 hours) workweek, the reality today is 36 hours. The USA currently averages 38.7 hours/week.

However, this gets complicated when you crank in vacation time. The Japanese, for example, have long been known to work long hours and not take a full vacations. But this source and graph shows the USA and Japan about the same at 1800 hours/year, or 34.6 hours/week. The UK is a bit lower.

Then there are 83 International Holidays in 2023, as for example:

June 14 World Blood Donor Day
June 16 International Day of the African Child
June 17 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought

So how does Hawaii celebrate King Kamehameha the First Day? Depends on where.

The Royal Hawaiian Center in Waikiki has festivities from June 6 to 10, but not today.
That Lei Draping Ceremony at Aliiolani Hale happened on June 9.
Honolulu had a floral parade on June 10, but Kona parades today.
For most, this is just another day off.

I'll close with Audition 2 of America's Got Talent. The most noteworthy performance was by Putri Ariani, a 17-year old blind pianist-singer-songwriter from Indonesia. She got a golden buzzer from Simon himself. The audience and judges cried. Her dream is to be accepted to Julliard. Now a cinch.

Another audition you should watch is that of 6-year old Zoe Erianna Cui (click on this to watch her). She sang Born This Way (that was the X-rated version by Lady Gaga...or if you prefer, here is her Grammy effort), and will hereby be known as Baby Gaga. Your day will be materially enhanced by watching both acts. Zoe also writes music. Watch her playing her very own Butterfly in a Beautiful Garden. She is from Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, and her parents came from the Philippines.

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

OSAKA EXPO: Day One

Well, the day finally came for us to go to the Osaka Expo. We were told ahead of time that the long walks would be fearful, giant lines will need to be tolerated just to get into the Expo, with those ocean breezes, it would really be cold, and so forth. Maybe it was pure luck, but we avoided all the above warnings We had a grand day, and are looking forward to Sunday, our second day at the Expo. So come along for an enjoyable ride. Our hotel is adjacent to the Tennoji Station, a very large one with several lines. We upgraded our Suica card and caught the Misosuji red line towards Umeda. Transferred to the Chuo green line at the Hommachi Station. This Osaka Metro train took us to the Yumeshima Station at the Expo site. It was a very large mob leaving the train and heading to the entrance. Took only a few minutes to get to the entrance. This mob was multiplied by at least a factor of ten of those already waiting to enter. However...

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO A JAPANESE HIGH TECH TOILET

Did you know that Oktoberfest in Germany is mostly in September? The very first day of Oktoberfest 2021 was supposed to be today, September 18, extending into October 3. Well, as in 2020, Oktoberfest was cancelled. So why is it called by that month when it is held mostly in September? The first celebration in 1810 was in October. Did you also know that Oktoberfest is held only in Munich? These days seven million drink more than a liter ( about three typical cans ) of beer each, costing around $11. Except for my wife and I when we followed the crowd to board the S-Bahn to the fairgrounds near Old Town. It was drizzling a bit. We bought a large pretzel outside of a typical barn where beer is served. We did not know that you needed to get this inside the hall. So no one came to serve us beer. After a while we decided to have lunch, and the restaurant we settled on only served wine. Thus, we might have been the ...

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