[mstaoru]

I lived and worked in China for 10+ years. It is very very rare that people take sick leaves there, or any kind of vacation. Partly it's considered "not good for the team" if someone is missing, so it's peer pressure to stay and grind. Partly its the fact that everything there is efficient - you can go to the hospital in the morning, see any doctor within 15 min, and do whatever tests within another 15 min. (In Germany in April I booked the closest endoscopy slot... in November.)

Now I work in Germany. Vacation and sick leaves here are... very generous. In fact I'm writing this while on vacation. In my company it's often hard to set up a meeting with 4+ people because for months in advance at least 1-2 are on vacation.

I don't want to express any opinion on this.

One interesting thing is how people here say "work smarter, not harder". I don't know how they imagine China, but I promise you people work smart AND hard there.

The results are obvious.