I married a Chinese woman, and thus at New Year’s all the children would go out of their way to do me favours so I would give them their red packets.
I jokingly complained that I was getting a bad deal: I didn’t get red packets as a child, but I had to give them away as an adult. But my aunt-in-law put it most amusingly:
“Giving red packets is even luckier than receiving them.”
How so?
“Do you have money to put in the packet and still eat? That’s pretty lucky."
But mostly within families, right? Admittedly I don't have any first hand exposure to these customs, but are red envelopes being given at work parties or between adult friends? The Wikipedia article cited in this thread is a bit vague on this:
"Red envelopes are gifts presented at social and family gatherings such as weddings or holidays such as Chinese New Year. The red color of the envelope symbolizes good luck and is a symbol to ward off evil spirits. It is also gifted when a person is visiting as a gesture of kindness for visiting. The act of requesting red packets is normally called tao hongbao or yao lishi, and in the south of China, dou li shi. Red envelopes are usually given out to the younger generation who are normally still in school or unemployed."
I loved Sacred Economics and I'm all about figuring out how to reintegrate potlatching and other gift economy ideas into the western world. We desperately need mechanisms other than inheritance for transferring wealth to the younger generations. So I'd love to hear that these practices are occurring outside extended families, but that's not been my impression.
I mean, it's "mostly within families" in the sense that most gifting occurs within family anywhere, but it certainly isn't restricted to familial contexts; you could definitely give them to friends, co-workers, teachers or other acquaintances.
Traditionally, there's some nuances to it, e.g. it's often a tradition associated with visiting someone, and it is meant to have symbolic intent, meaning that it doesn't fit settings like secret santas.
I know they do it in South Africa (along with a "13th month" of pay), and I'm assuming the US too.
Outside of those two, I don't really know of any other Western cultures where tipping is much of a thing at all - let alone big tips at the end of the year.
> I don't really know of any other Western cultures where tipping is much of a thing at all
When my dad sent me to the barbers for a haircut, he gave me a coin to tip the barber. I think the idea was that the barber might remember me (9 year-old kid)! I don't have much hair now, so I don't have to tip barbers. But I tip taxi-drivers, evern though I know I'll probably never see them again, and if I do, they csrtainly won't remember me.
I tip waiters, because I believe they depend on tips to get decent pay. I hate it that this is necessary. I also HATE that tips for waiters go into the tip-jar, and are shared by kitchen staff and management.
People should get proper pay. How hard is that to understand?
The "sanitary operatives" in the UK used to ring your doorbell in the run-up to Christmas, more-or-less demanding a tip. If you didn't tip, then you risked having your Christmas rubbish languishing for a couple of weeks, or even strewed over your garden path. Happily, that practice is now ILLEGAL.
