Labor Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 23)

Today, Saturday, was Labor Thanksgiving Day (勤労感謝の日) in Japan. Before the end of WWII, the holiday was a harvest festival known as Niiname-sai. Then, at the urging of the U.S. (at least according to the Japanese Wikipedia page), the holiday was changed to Labor Thanksgiving Day (apparently with the idea being to combine the two American holidays of Labor Day and Thanksgiving into one). Now it's just a public holiday, and other than not having to work, little is done to celebrate the day. This year the holiday fell on a Saturday. Some companies require employees to work on Saturdays, so those employees were given the day off, but basically everyone else gets screwed out of a national holiday. What a great way to celebrate all the hard labor the citizens are doing, by letting them have Saturday off. On a side note, when a holiday falls on a Sunday, people are given Monday off.