It's more like: nose to the grindstone, long hours, cheap wages, save and invest everything.

So it may come as a surprise that China's trying to emulate European-style vacations. At least, that's what it sounds like. A recent memo from the powerful State Council, the highest level of government, urged Chinese companies to send their workers home at noon on Fridays, thereby introducing the

four-and-a-half-day workweek.

It's a dramatic shift from the old days, says Nicholas Lardy, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "People used to work at state enterprise, 8, 9, 10 hours a day, six days a week," he says. Now the idea is to send people home for long weekends so they can spend more money. The new policy won quite a lot of applause on Chinese social media … and a few jokes. "Don't look for work, don't go to the office, every day's a holiday!" commented one reader in reaction to the directive.