Made in Macao | Work-travel-balance

Jenny Lao-Phillips

A non-resident of  Macao once commented with envy on the many public holidays we enjoy in this Special Administrative Region. I remember that when he wondered aloud what we “Macaoians” do with so many free days, I replied we have a strong travelling culture. That has been my impression of the younger generation in this city, seeing students and young professionals planning their next trips and talking about their last vacations. What’s more, whenever I ask someone what they like to do in their free time, more often than not, the answer is ‘travelling’.
But thinking back, the travelling culture in Macao seems to have appeared overnight. In fact, it has only been during the last 10 years that I hear people’s travel stories everywhere around me.  Before that, perhaps during our parents’ youth, travelling was a big deal, and flying seemed like a once in a life time occurrence. Of course, Macao was just a small, quiet town then. Being an economically developed city now, even children  can afford to fly to the other side of the world twice a year.
It has been normal in many cultures to go on family vacations, or road trips with friends once a year or every few years. But in Macao, which is so close to many exotic Southeast and East Asian countries which are good for short trips, and with so many holidays in a year, vacation is not an annual, but more like a quarterly, or even monthly practice. So, do we get tired of travelling? And what motivates us, especially the younger generation to travel so many times a year?
With the long weekend of our National Day holiday ahead, many local citizens have already taken a couple days of their allotted annual leave in order to enjoy a week of vacation.  Not surprisingly, one of the main reasons they cited for getting away next weekend is to escape from the crowd of tourists during the national holidays.
However, what puzzled me was that quite a few people explained that their reason for travelling was to get away from work. Why does one have to leave Macao to get away from work? Can’t we just stay at home?
Apparently with modern technology, work is always on our phones. Even during weekends, many young professionals claim there is no escape from phone calls or urgent emails. Moreover, workers  feel guilty if they do not reply to messages immediately. Thus, we have the opportunity for a big escape when one can set email autoreply and voice mail messages saying they are out of town.
In addition, there are those who find travelling the norm for holidays. It is almost as if they have not really had a holiday unless they fly to a destination. While some think that it is the modern trend to leave Macao only during holidays, some admitted that there is a certain peer pressure to go somewhere with friends every long weekend.
But regardless of whether people are travelling to get away for work or in pursuit of something else, most people often report feeling even more tired than on normal work days once they have returned from their trip. It seems that the purpose of short getaways is literally, “getting away”, rather than relaxation and rest.
There seems to be a trend of people having to continuously recover from jetlag, as well as exhaustive travelling. If this is true with the young generations of professionals in Macao, we need to redefine work-life-balance, as it looks as though we cannot enjoy life outside of work unless we travel far away.
Perhaps someone needs to start thinking about work-travel-balance for energetic employees who need to get away often.