It's not something that your employer alone has dreamed up. "Official" Chinese holidays (a.k.a Golden Weeks) are only officially three days. Employers can give their employees two extra days off to make the holiday last a week. In order to do this, they must have 'make up' days to cover the two unofficial days off...hence, you lose a whole weekend or part of two weekends.

Makes no sense, but TIC.

As Sinobear pointed out, yeah this is an "official" thing. 

What a farce though. Working the weekend as our employers deigned to give us two weekdays off instead.  I still shudder at the idiocy of being given three days off (Tues 1st, Wed 2nd, Thurs 3rd) at the start of Jan for 'western' new year, only to then have to work 8 days in a row.  Just give us Jan 1 off and we'll keep our weekend free thanks.

yeah, people have talked about this and griped about this ever since I can remember.   It is a fully retarded policy, but there is no explaining that to them.

My guess is it something to do with 'communism'. Something about that since we are Communist, we like to work hard, much harder than those slacker Socialist or Capitalist types !  We exhibit/prove this by working extra days to make up for when we had days off.

hmmm,,, ok,,   next 'logic' step,,, no frickin' holidays.  holidays are a decadent Imperialist indulgence. Work 365 days 18 hours per.   Orwell will be Proud !   

I just point to my contract, which says Mon-Fri. I always ensure that Mon-Fri only is specified in the contract. No one yet has thought ahead to what would happen during holidays at the time of signing the contract.

Unfortunately for me I had to work today too. It wasn't so bad though! Here in China it's the equivalent of making up days like we use to when we had floods or had to sit through a blizzard back home. The only difference was back home it was at the end of the year that we had to make up the days. Here it's right after the break!

Yes, we work today and tomorrow. nothing to do, 20 people out of 200 total here, but have to be here :( spend electricity for nothing is important for boss, in time he is run out of money :D 

I haven't been working today but my colleagues did. I and my other foreign English teachers are given a 3 weeks holidays, there is still one to go, the next week. The principle at the school told me that I will be cut off this Saturday  from my salary because I will not be working. So, they give me a 3 weeks unpaid Holidays, but they will cut my salary for this Saturday because I am not working. Not to mention that they break on my contract in 2 ways: giving me a 3 weeks holidays instead of 1 and not paying me at all. Of course this long vacation it can be good as long as you get paid too. I enjoy it anyway, what else can I do?
All this issue took us, the foreign teachers by surprise and in doing so, they prove that they can do it again at any time when it comes to save some money. There is nothing to ensure that this it won't repeat again. Nonetheless the agent will pay for one week only as stated in the contract. Does it make any sense to you guys? Apart from "this is China", what thought would help to accept this with peace of mind and happiness to getting back to work? 

Most Chinese  have got used to this though we also complain about having to work on weekends.The government makes the Golden Weeks in order to encourage people to spend more money.Because people can go for traveling and spend more if they have longer holidays.It's tyricky!