Digital gift money the latest New Year trend

Giving hongbao, or red packets, during the Spring Festival or other important occasions is a long Chinese tradition.

A red packet, usually a red envelope with money in it, is traditionally handed out to children by parents, grandparents, or relatives and friends as a way of wishing them good luck or good fortune.

However, many people have said on the Internet that their children received fewer or thinner red envelopes during this year's Lunar New Year. Compared with the fat hongbao children received in previous years, this year's hongbao have been more symbolic rather than materialistic. For those children who reaped a lot of money from their red envelopes in the past, the slim red packets they received during this year's Spring Festival may invite their complaints or cause them less happy for a time. However, fewer or thinner red packets herald a positive social trend and should be encouraged.

To hand out hongbao is a kind of expression of love to minors, regardless of how much money they contain. However, it had become a measurement or competition of economic strength. A red packet with less than the expected sum of money was derided as "poverty" or "stinginess" on the part of the giver. And out of fear of having to give out bumper red packets to the children of relatives and friends, some people choose not to go home during the Spring Festival.

Giving out bigger and bigger hongbao has not only put huge economic pressure on some people, it is also a serious deviation from the original nature. Such an unhealthy practice has even been used as a clandestine means for bribery, as revealed by numerous cases of corruptions in the past years. In fact, the sweeping anti-corruption campaign the Chinese leadership has launched over the past two years may have contributed to the slimmer red packets, as they are hardly used as a means for ulterior purposes.

However, at the same time, the popularity of social media platforms such as Weibo and Wechat have offered people digital ways to distribute their hongbao. This can be reflected by the change of greeting words when familiar acquaintances meet. "Did you grab red packets?" and "How many red packets did you grab?" seem to have become popular questions asked between friends and colleagues when meeting after this year's Spring Festival.

The popularity of Alipay, Weibo, Wechat, as well as the Spring Festival Gala hongbao, have accelerated the shift of hongbao distribution from offline to online and plunged Chinese people into a hongbao-grabbing revelry that overshadowed anything else during the Lunar New Year. Statistics shows that during the Spring Festival Eve alone, red packets worth 500 million yuan ($80 million) were distributed to audiences through the Wechat platform, with the biggest single red packet totaling 4,999 yuan. To compete with Wechat, Alipay also gave out red packets worth a total of 100 million yuan during the prime time of the Spring Festival Eve.

The distribution of red packets by businessmen may be a kind of means for marketing and a kind of reward for consumers, but to give red packets among friends and colleagues via Wechat, even if only a nominal sum, can help lubricate inter-personal relationships and enhance feelings of friendship.

As a new form of wishing friends and colleagues a happy new year, such a change is positive and should be encouraged. Its popularity is expected to further make traditional commercialized hongbao distribution less popular.

The author Fang Zhou is a senior writer with China Daily.