A few misgivings about giving

• Source: Global Times
• [10:40 June 25 2010]
• Comments

By Randall Fields

I'm not a fan of ceremonies, especially ones where money is involved.

My first ceremony was when my wife and I got married last year. We went to Nanjing to meet her classmates. It was the usual. We got drunk, played games and wished each other well. Then came time for people to give us money, which came in the traditional form of the hongbao, or red envelope. Every so often a person came up to give me a red envelope with money in it. It made me feel weird, because I had hardly known these people an hour, and here they were giving me money. But, after five people, then 10 people, you kind of get used to it. Then one of her classmates came up and gave me a jigsaw puzzle, and I thought: "What the hell am I going to do with a jigsaw puzzle, man. Show me the money!" I couldn't help but think that he didn't approve of the marriage. The money paid for our banquet, with a little left over for fun.

My last ceremony was in February during the Chinese New Year. We stayed in Anqing with my wife's family for 10 days, during which we went through the same crazy ritual twice a day. Her parents would introduce me to family members, who would make me drink loads of baijiu. Then a weird back and forth would follow in which a someone would offer us an unusually thick hongbao, followed by my wife's father rejecting it. This went on for five minutes until someone gave in.

Another family friend offered us 6,000 yuan ($880), and the back and forth went on about 10 minutes, until my father-in-law finally accepted it. Of course, we never got to see that money because he said that if we accepted the money, the guy would have asked us to do some impos-sible favor in the future. Honestly, I was pretty agitated about having to give it back. If a person doesn't have good intentions when giving something, why offer it in the first place?

I found out later that this man couldn't really afford the hongbao he offered us. This brings me to another point. Why is it that Chinese parents put so much pressure on their children to give such large amounts of money to them every year? I have so many Chinese friends who dread Chinese New Year, simply because they cannot afford it.

I know one young Chinese woman who works in Shanghai, but her parents live in Yangzhou. She has to save half her salary every month for her parents. This money goes to buy her brother a house, so that he can find a suitable wife. What is more outrageous is that her parents have their own business. This young lady already has to pay for her apartment and food with her meager 4,000 yuan salary. I know this is Chinese tradition, but I think money should be omitted from joyous occasions. With house prices skyrocketing, and the growing income gap between rich and poor, maybe a small gift would suffice, at least for the working poor. I think money just ruins things. I'm sure the younger generation of Chinese would agree with me.