Chinese New Year Custom of Lai See Gifts
80Little Gifts of Money in Red Envelopes
Lai See is the custom of giving a gift of money in a special red envelope during the New Year's celebration. In the Chinese culture red is a lucky color. Both red and gold (which represents wealth) are popular colors for the New Year celebrations.
The combination of the red envelope and money represent a wish for good luck and good fortune in the coming year as red represents good luck and gold represents money and wealth. While the amount of money in the envelope is usually small (a single, low denomination bill – never coins) it symbolizes a wish for good fortune. Many believe that good luck will come to both the giver and the recipient of the Lai See.
The Lai See custom entails older relatives giving the special red envelopes with money inside to young children in the family. In many traditional families children do not receive an allowance like children in the West so the gift provides them pocket money which they can spend themselves.
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Lai See Customs
In addition to children, married couples will also give red envelopes with money to unmarried people and some business and managers have started giving gifts of red envelopes with money to their staff.
Lai See is not a general giving of gifts but rather a custom in which some people are givers (married people, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, bosses, etc.) and others are recipients (children, single people, employees, etc.).
In prosperous Hong Kong the Lai See custom is very popular and lots of money exchanges hands each New Year. Many people not only have people they intend to give a red envelope to but also carry spare red envelopes with money in them for situations where they meet someone by chance such as running into an old friend who is single on the street or at a party. Unlike Christmas gifts on which you usually write the recipient's name, it is not the custom with Lai See to put names on the envelope. The idea is to have a few extra envelopes with money so that when you run into someone unexpectedly you can give them an envelope and make it look as if your intention had been to look them up and give them the gift of Lai See.
Also in Hong Kong the custom is to use only new bills. This puts a strain on the banks and especially on the central bank which has to print thousands of new bills each year. People spend the weeks before New Year visiting banks to get newly printed bills. Many banks announce when they will have new bills and people line up outside before they open in order to get some of the new currency. The government has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to get people to use existing bills rather than new ones. But many are reluctant to do so for fear that it will appear that they forgot about a person or, worse still, did not plan to give a gift to someone until they suddenly discovered that they would be encountering that person during the New Year's celebrations and then just took a bill from their wallet and put it into a red envelope.
The amount of money in an envelope is usually just a single, small denomination, bill but, because effort is required in order to obtain new bills, the use of new bills conveys the message that the giver thinks enough of the recipient to go to the extra effort required to obtain a special bill. In this sense it is the thought behind the gift rather than the value of the gift that counts.
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Chinese New Year in the News
- Eudora students get Chinese instructionLawrence Journal-World25 hours ago
Randi Hacker stood in front of Staci Mann’s third-grade class, enthusiastically telling various students they were either a snake or a dragon. But in the context of the Chinese New Year birth animals, snakes are wise and dragons are pioneering and strong.
- Eurail Pass Expands Into Chinese MarketThaipr.net5 hours ago
- New Campaign Launched in the Asian Market The Eurail Group G.I.E. is swiftly expanding by inviting the Chinese market to discover the European continent by train. Every year the number of
- Chinese investors keen on new investments in RPManila Bulletin24 hours ago
Chinese businessmen have expressed strong interest to invest in the country’s tourism, retirement, mining, agriculture, and manufacturing noting the vibrancy in these sectors.
- Institute on Chinese culture, language to debut at Western Michigan University MondayThe Kalamazoo Gazette9 hours ago
With music and dance, Western Michigan University will celebrate Monday the creation of its new WMU Confucius Institute, a program backed by the Chinese ministry of education to promote understanding of Chinese language and culture in the world.
- Chinese female centenarian gets new teethRussian Information Agency Novosti4 days ago
A 107-year-old Chinese woman was surprised when she suddenly discovered two new teeth in her mouth, Chinese media said on Thursday.
- China Telecom to launch Palm and BlackBerry handsets this year?Engadget1 second ago
Although we like to think of the US and European markets as the center of the cellphone universe, there are big (Big!) sales to be had elsewhere behind the unstoppable force of globalization. And when it comes to absolute numbers, markets just don't get any bigger than China with its estimated 700 million subscribers. Rumors of BlackBerry and Palm twist-ups with Chinese carriers are nothing new ...
- India will use F/A-18A/C Hornets and F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to challenge Chinese Navy in Indian and Pacific OceanIndia Daily8 hours ago
F18 Super Hornet and Mig 29s fitted with super algorithms will challenge the Chinese Navy bottom up shaking China right at its core. The new generation aircraft (F18s) will be in addition to the 45 Mig-29Ks the navy is buying from Russia, 16 of which were ordered in 2004 along with Admiral Gorshkov.
- Chinese migrants change names to be 'more Hong Kong'AsiaOne1 second ago
HONG KONG - An increasing number of mainland Chinese migrants to Hong Kong are changing the spelling of their surnames to avoid discrimination in the former British colony, a report said Monday.
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Nice custom. I like it. :)
Excuse me, but what is bill?
jim.sheng - a "bill" as used above refers to a single piece of paper money that is worth the value that is specified on it. In the United States a five dollar bill ($5) is a piece of paper currency that is worth $5.
I suspect that paper currency (of any nation) is referred to as bills is a result of the fact that the word "bill" also denotes a statement or listing of money owed such as the "doctor bill", "electric bill", etc. In centuries past when people used gold to pay for goods and services they often stored their gold with a shopkeeper who had a secure place to store it (this would have been before locks were common in private homes) and the storekeeper would give them a receipt for the gold the person had left with him. In time it became more convenient to simply leave the gold in storage and pay with the receipt or write a note authorizing the person from whom you purchased the good to collect the appropriate amount of gold from the shopkeeper holding your gold. This note became, in effect, a "bill" that showed the money owed to the holder of the note and which allowed the holder of the note to present to the shopkeeper to collect his gold. In time people found it easier to simply pay with the notes or bills rather than carry gold around with them.
When governments started printing paper money (see my Hub entitled http://hubpages.com/hub/Jacques-de-Meulles-and-His ), most initially backed their paper money with gold (also silver in the case of the United States) with people having the option of either using the paper bills or exchanging them at a bank for gold or silver coins worth an equivalent amount.
Today, most governments no longer allow people to exchange paper money for gold or silver (in the U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt did away with issuing gold coins and ceased allowing pople to exchange paper money for gold in the 1930s and a later administration in the 1960s did the same with silver) but, despite the fact that paper currency can no longer be exchanged for gold or silver they continue to be known as "bills".
Thanks, I asked a silly question, you answered me with the whole currency developing history. I have learned a lot from your hub. Thanks again.












Moonmaiden says:
3 years ago
I needed this hub a few years ago when we didn't know you weren't supposed to give coins. Even though you didn't mention it, most of the red envelopes we were given at a TET festival had $2.00 bills in them.