Spring Festival a time for family queries and hongbao
Print Edition
EDITOR’S note:
Andy Boreham comes from New Zealand’s capital city, Wellington, and has lived in China, off and on, for the past four years. Now he is living in Shanghai earning a master’s degree in Chinese culture and language at Fudan University. He welcomes your feedback on all of the issues he covers — you can reach him at andy.boreham@shanghaidaily.com.
ONE of the things I hate most about Christmas — probably the closest Western equivalent to the Chinese New Year in scale — is when I’m forced to engage in smalltalk with family members I don’t know that well, like Aunty Gladys.
But even her mildly probing questions don’t come close to the barrage many young Chinese face during China’s biggest annual celebration: Spring Festival (Chunjie). But it’s all good, because hongbao (red envelopes with lucky money) will follow!
Usually my Christmas smalltalk includes pesky questions that seem to be asked as some kind of ritual, like: “How’s your year been?” and “how’s (insert town or city name) at this time of year?” No one really cares about the answers, to be perfectly honest, but it would feel kind of strange not to ask anyway.
Now multiply the amount of questions hurled during Christmas by one hundred and you might be getting close to the level of familial interrogation involved during your typical family reunion over Chinese New Year, at least for the younger generation.
Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar, falling between January 20 and February 11.
Like I mentioned before, it’s China’s largest annual festival, and to say that traveling home is a must during this time would be an understatement: Chunjie instigates the largest annual human migration in the world.
Once everyone is gathered back at their laojia (hometown) it’s important to get together with the immediate family and pay a visit (bainian) to all of the extended family — uncles, aunties, etc — household by household.
It’s important to bring gifts, but this changes greatly depending on the area. Then the household you’re visiting will give hongbao to the younger (usually not yet working) members of the family who came visiting.
But don’t forget, this is also time for questions!
Fortunately one of my best Chinese friends, who happens to be with me in New Zealand as I write this column, is on hand to share his experiences before heading home in time for another Spring Festival next week.
He says that every year he is asked the same questions by dozens of family members, normally covering the areas of school grades and romance. “When are you bringing a girl home?” is probably the question he is most frequently asked, he says, because he’s still studying and so won’t fall victim — yet — to questions about income level and the purchase or important assets such as a car or a house.
“The worst is yet to come,” he says, because he will soon be in the prime age to be asked about having children. “I’m not looking forward to that Chunjie!” he laughs.
But he’s also grateful, he says with a grin, because these proving questions that levelled at younger Chinese every Spring Festival as usually followed by generous envelopes of deep red.
He’s still young enough to receive hongbao from all across the family and, perhaps more importantly, he’s still young enough to be able to pocket what he receives without gifting it back: His mum and dad will return the favour by giving hongbao back to others on his behalf.
Reciprocation is such an important part of the game, but it seems — for now at least — that he’s found a loophole. Last year he pocketed 1,500 yuan.
So spare a thought for our Chinese comrades this Spring Festival. Not only do they have to take part in the biggest annual human migration during the depths of winter, but they also have to face a million questions from the extended family before reluctantly receiving a bit of red as some form of redress after that lengthy interrogation.
Maybe if Aunty Gladys’s questions were followed by a red envelope they’d be that little bit easier to accept.
Then again, maybe not.
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