Chinese New Year: To work or not to work?

In my few years of working as a City lawyer in London, I have always volunteered to work during the Christmas period and to cover for my colleagues. My colleagues, the majority of whom have a western upbringing, would love to take the time off and go home. Comparatively, Christmas means little to me. Sure, it is a fun period with lots going on socially and I have always enjoyed the festivity. But in my culture Christmas has never been that important (I am Chinese and was raised in China). To me, the most important festival of the year is just around the corner: Chinese New Year.

Taking time off for Chinese New Year has always presented to be a bit of a dilemma which I have not quite yet overcome. January is the start of the Western new year. But Chinese New Year Eve (and corollary celebrations) would usually take place in late January or February. This is often a busy period for our business as clients pick up transactions that have been put on hold over Christmas. New matters start to come in. Overall, it is a period of ramping up – the subtext is that you had your break in December. To me, it is just downright awkward to ask for a holiday when things just start to get busy. I have often ended up not taking holidays for Chinese New Year as a result.

This is partly due to a lack of cultural awareness. To be fair, this is not a unique problem faced by Chinese lawyers. Most people would probably be equally clueless as to when Diwali is, or Hanukah. I do believe this is a common problem faced by ethnic minority lawyers in the UK, and here is the Chinese perspective.

For the purposes of this article, I have reached out to a few Chinese lawyers who work in different legal fields and asked for their experiences and tips in dealing with taking time off during Chinese New Year:

Ruihua Wang, senior in-house lawyer at Tradeweb

Ruihua is qualified in both mainland China and England and Wales and is currently an in-house legal counsel at Tradeweb, a trading venue for financial instruments. Her team is relatively small in size and as a result, she has a great relationship with her colleagues on both a professional and personal level.

'When I was a junior associate I don’t think I had ever taken time off for Chinese New Year. It was difficult as we were just back from Christmas and work was busy. Also, as a junior lawyer you inevitably had less control and flexibility of your time.

Being in-house does not necessary make taking time off during Chinese New Year an easier task. I found that cultural awareness and mutual-understanding amongst colleagues are key. If your colleagues understand and respect you, they will try to understand your culture as well. My current colleagues are supportive in that sense and most of them know that Chinese New Year is happening soon. As a result, taking time off is relatively easy for me. However, it is not always like that. I have worked for other big financial institutions as a legal secondee in the past and have found it hard to take time off for Chinese New Year. The sheer size of the legal department made it hard to have the same tight-knit feel and understanding with your colleagues.

Another factor which impacts Chinese lawyers taking time off during the Chinese New Year is our own perception of our culture and identity. Working and living in a country like the UK where Chinese culture is the minority, some of us subconsciously believe that our own culture and festivals are less important than the UK festivals. As a result, we feel less able to ask for time off to celebrate a lesser known holiday. Having lived in the UK for over a decade, however, I have gained more understanding about other cultures and my own background. Taking time off during traditional Chinese festivals has become less of a challenge for me.'

Meiyi Lu, associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Mei came to the UK when she was 10 years old and attended a Catholic school. Regardless, she sees Chinese New Year as the most important day of the year. She is fortunate to work in a big team with approximately 30 lawyers so there is usually enough capacity in the team to provide coverage. Despite that, she does have second thoughts about asking for time off to celebrate, not least because it hasn’t been too long since the Christmas down-period, but also because she does not want to make it sound like too much of a big deal.

'I don’t have any tips. This year I’m on secondment and it’s the first time that I’ve plucked up the courage to ask for days off – just two of them!

Whilst we are on this topic, I think much more can be done in City law to make people more culturally aware, and to make these occasions less of a time of virtual signalling for firms. In my previous firm, one Chinese New Year thing they did was to hold a 'tea ceremony', where tea specialists came to the firm and poured tea ceremoniously during lunchtime. This is something that myself and my Chinese friends have never seen nor heard of. Where does it come from?'

Xiaojiu Zhu, director and partner at Cruickshanks

Dr. Zhu owns her own law firm and is the founder of the UK Society of Chinese Lawyers (UKSCL).

The perk of being your own boss is that you never have the problem of not being able to ask for holidays. However, on another level, Dr. Zhu noted that there is an overall lack of interest and activism in the lawyer community that build up the profile of cultural festivals. Her firm has celebrated the Chinese New Year by taking staff out for a Chinese dinner for many years. As head of the UKSCL, she has been collaborating with the Law Society, MPs and peers alike, and Chinese communities including the Bank of China and UK Taiping Insurance etc. with a view to raising cultural awareness as a whole.

The UKSCL holds a Chinese New Year celebration event every year to bring together Chinese lawyers of different specialisms, walks of life and nationalities. For those of us that are sadly still working this February, there is at least a (Covid-safe, of course) zoom gala to look forward to!

Clive Wong is a capital markets associate at Latham & Watkins LLP and a committee member of the Law Society’s Ethnic Minority Lawyers Division