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Everybody
Loves Gifts
Different Generations Love Different Kinds
Lunar New Year gifts can be divided into 3 main categories, i.e. traditional (dried shitake mushrooms and dried
scallops), modern (candies and Danish cookies) and all-time (red pocket monies).
1) Traditional
This kind of gifts were and are very
popular in my grandparents' generation, maybe my parents'.
They are usually dried shitake mushrooms.
Yes, you can buy fresh shitake mushrooms in the grocery stores nowadays without any problem. But when it comes to the
Grade A Japanese shitake mushrooms, they cost at least 10 times more than what we pay for.
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Dried scallops are just the same as dehydrated shitake mushrooms.
Chinese usually buy Dried shark fins if they can really afford. Yep....it sounds scary. But whoever receives
this gift will feel like they are in the royal family.
The "Chiu Chau" style geese are really my
grandfather's (from my father side) tradition. Every year, he spent a week before the coming of the New Year in
his less-than-50-square-feet kitchen to cook these geese....4-6 hours a day. Each goose takes almost a day to cook.
My grandfather always cooked about 7-10 of them and give them away.
The sauce of cooking these geese is like American
cooking their spaghetti sauce. Every family has its own secret ingredients.
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| "Sai Wan" in Hong Kong is best-known to sell the sundried products, such as shitake mushrooms. |
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2) Modern
Modern gifts are heavily influenced by the western
culture. They are candies, chocolate and cookies. You can find quite a few of the American and European brands
during this time of the year.
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3) All-Time
Red pocket monies are the all-time favorite. Kids and singles are always so looking forward to this
period of the year. But to the married couples, this is the most difficult time, especially if they have big families
and huge group of friends.
Red pocket money is a little red envelope, which has many contemporary and cute designs nowadays, with
some money in it. It ranges from HKD20-100 (the exchange rate is 1USD = 7.8HKD).
There are hierachies and
seniority when it comes to give and receive the red pocket monies. Every Chinese follows these strict rules:
a) Grandparents/parents give their
grandchildren/children (no matter if they are single or married).
b) Grandchildren/children can give the red pocket monies to their grandparents/parents to show their respect.
c) Bosses/managers/supervisors
give to their employees/subordinates (no matter if they are single or married).
d) Older siblings give to the younger
ones (no matter if they are single or married).
e) If a younger sibling is married and the older one is still single,
the married couples do not give the red pocket monies to the older sibling.
f) If all the siblings are married, no red pocket monies is involved. They may only give to each other's little ones.
g) Among friends, the married one can give to the one who is still single. If all are married, just give the
red pocket monies to each other's little ones.
When the red pocket monies are given out, the giver always gives out 2 envelopes which represents his/her spouse
is still alive. Otherwise, there will be only 1 envelope.
All the above 3 categories of gifts usually takes
place at the same time. When someone visits his/her family and/or friends, there will be the exchange of gifts and red pocket monies.
During the Chinese New Year, the less senior must pay the visits to the
senior in the family first. Like grandchildren with their parents go to visit their grandparents. They bring a
gift over. The grandparents give the red pocket money to their children and grandchildren. Also, there is an extra red envelope for the gift that it was brought over in order to show the appreciation.
Grandparents
could pay the visit to their children and grandchildren after. But it is not a must.
You may start getting
confused by now with all these rules in such a big and happy festival, huh? But this is what we call the Chinese traditions
:-)
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