Hongbao 101: A Guide to Gifting & Receiving
Chinese New Year has arrived and that means it’s time to hand out 红包 hóngbāo! The little red packets can be seen next to check-out registers all over town. But who do you gift them to and how much do you put inside?
We took an informal poll on whether our readers will be giving ayi a hongbao during CNY. According to our readers, most of you will gift your ayi this CNY.
One mom on WeChat said, “We normally give a month’s salary + tea/nuts/fruit basket but we’ve been with our ayi for three years, otherwise just a hongbao is fine.”
In the previous years, Jingkids International has written extensively on how much to cash to stuff in hongbaos and to be quite frank, there’s no set number, only a ballpark figure.
I wanted to dig a little deeper into the traditions and customs surrounding hongbao so I reached out to the Beijing-based expat service provider MyPengYou, who provided a wealth of information. The history of the red packet dates all the way back to the Ming Dynasty when it was actually a series of coins strung across a red rope called 压岁钱 yāsuìqián. These were gifted to children as a way of keeping bad luck at bay over the coming year. However, the now-ubiquitous red envelope replaced the strings around the advent of the Republic of China, and the most modern incarnations are now delivered electronically via WeChat. With social distancing restrictions everywhere, WeChat hongbaos are the fastest and safest way to send some well wishes to your friends during CNY.
There's more to this story! This article originally appeared on our sister account, Jingkids International.
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Images: Canva, MyPengYou
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