Spring Festival Gifts and New Year's Money:

In addition to setting off lots of fireworks, eating plenty of dumplings (吃饺子), watching TV (看电视), and playing poker (扑克) and mahjong (麻将), Chinese people give each other gifts (礼物) during the Spring Festival. However, this gift giving differs from the kind of gift-giving that occurs back in the states around Christmas time.

The presents adults typically give to one another are depicted in the photo above. Yes, we're talking about fruit packaged in brightly colored boxes. This shot was taken in front of the small green-grocers shop near the Dongzhimen subway station that is a 10 minute walk south of my apartment community. I was on my way to the subway station when I noticed the boxes and decided to stop and take a picture of them.

While adults give each other fruit, children receive cash from their parents and older relatives. This money is called “New Year's cash” (压岁钱) or “lucky money.” I've read and been told that this practice dates back to an old Chinese folk legend. According to this legend, the money was used as a protective charm (护身符) to scare off a monster that tries to harm small children on the night before the Lunar New Year.

As time passed, this custom came to be seen as auspicious and lucky in other ways. In particular, the Chinese believed that people who give money will be very lucky (行大运) and more likely to become rich (发大财). Hence, the New Year's Cash is also called Lucky Money.

Chinese superstitions regarding numbers and colors are very much a part of Lucky Money gift giving tradition. Since red is seen as the most auspicious of all colors, the cash is given to the children in red envelopes. People also try very hard to ensure that the cash given is in crisp new bills. And the numbers on the bills also have to be in a rising sequence, so as to show that the recipient and giver's wealth and fortune will rise over time.

Finally, money is never given in denominations having the number four. Four (四) is a very inauspicious number because its pronunciation is quite similar to the Mandarin word for “death” (死). Both words are pronounced as “si”, which sounds kind of like an “s” sound, as in sing, followed by an “uh” sound. The only difference is that 四 is said in a falling tone, while 死 is said in a falling and rising tone.

Another interesting part of this custom is that children must give this money back to their parents if their mother gives birth to a new brother or sister within the New Year. The Chinese call this obligation 礼尚往来, which can be translated either as “courtesy demands reciprocity” or “what goes around, comes around.” Thanks to the one-child policy, this doesn't happen very much anymore.

Over the past few days, I asked a number of my Chinese friends what children here do with all their “lucky money”. As Chinese families become more affluent, the cash in those red envelopes often amounts to several thousand RMB. I wondered whether or not the children could freely spend these funds.

The answer everyone gave me to that question was “certainly not.” Rather than being spent, practically all of the “Lucky Money” is set aside and deposited in a real bank or secure piggy bank at home. The funds are then used to purchase school supplies and provide a fund for high school and, in many cases, university tuition (in China free universal education extends only through middle school [初中]; high schools [高中] charge tuition [学费]).

I really think the “Lucky Money” custom is something that should emulated in America during Christmas. I have to make a confession here: I've really come to loathe Christmas in my middle age. While I mainly resent all the contrived happiness that comes with season, I also find the whole gift-giving routine to be incredibly stressful. Since most American children, especially kids from affluent households who are often spoiled rotten as it is, already have everything, it's very difficult to buy them material things they will appreciate for any length of time.

By contrast, the Chinese “Lucky Money” custom teaches children some important lessons about life. Those who will be joined by a new sibling are taught the importance of reciprocity and how different generations should be obligated to help one another. And those who get to keep their money are taught at an early age the values of thrift and saving. In particular, they are told early on that it's better to defer immediate consumption and gratification in order to pay for things that will yield much bigger benefits over the long-term.

Indeed, if what my friends told me is anything to go on, China's young children do acquire something of a “saving mentality” early on. For example, when I asked them if Chinese kids resent not being able to quickly blow all their cash, they all told me that wasn't the case. Indeed, the children are typically quite happy to have this money set aside.

Thus Chinese people become militant savers at a very early age. I'll be talking more about this behavior and how it contrasts with Americans’ free-spending habits—well up to the latest recession that is—in a later blog post. Stay tuned!

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

吃饺子 (jiao3zi5). The first character is the Mandarin word for “eat,” while the other two characters is the word for “dumpling.” There are three kinds of 饺子: 水饺 (shui3jiao3), or boiled dumplings; 蒸饺 (zheng1jiao3), or steamed dumplings; and 锅贴 (guo3tie1), or pan-fried dumplings. The first character in the last category actually means pot/pan, while the second means to stick, so Chinese name is actually very similar to the name commonly given to these dumplings by American English speakers, i.e. “pot-stickers.”
看电视 (kan4dian4shi4). The first character means “watch” or “read.” The Chinese word for television combines the character for “power/electric power” (电) with the word for “vision” (视). Very logical!
扑克 (pu1ke4).
麻将 (ma1jiang1).
礼物 (li3wu4).
压岁钱 (ya1sui4qian2).
护身符 (hu4shen1fu2).
行大运 (xing2da4yun4).
发大财 (fa1da4cai2).
礼尚往来 (li3shang4wang3lai2).
初中 (chu1zhong1).
高中 (gao1zhong1).
学费 (xue2fei4).