Tag Archives: lucky money

Coins on the Ground

Context:                                                    

O is a Pre-med biology major at USC, currently a freshman. O is a Vietnamese American who grew up in Vancouver, Washington — a short drive from Portland, Oregon. 

Text:

Me: Do you have anything you collect or do for good luck?

O: Yeah, actually I collect coins. Not just pennies, but like all kinds of coins.

Me: Really? How do you find them?

O: It’s really ridiculous, I just pick them up from the ground and keep them in my pocket, because I think they will bring me good luck.

Me: From the ground?

O: Yeah, they would be lying on the ground while I’m walking and I’ll pick them up, put them in my pockets.

Me: Do you keep the pennies forever?

O: No. I take them out and put them back on the ground once I think I don’t need the luck anymore. Like, the luck can go to someone else. 

Analysis:

O demonstrates some form of sympathetic magic. He connects receiving luck to picking up coins from the ground, both how lucky he is to find the coin and the luck the coin itself gives him. The luck O has that initially gives him the coin is somehow transferred into the coin, where there is some exchange between him and the coin that gives him luck with the penny as a conduit, collecting and releasing luck for anyone to pick up. The idea of quantifying luck or magic seems like contagious/contact magic, where magic or superstition can transfer from one person to the next with the penny is added as a middle man. Keeping the coin is somehow magic that ensures the luck will be sustained in him while giving it away is also magic, ensuring that luck will be passed on to the next person. If luck was the contagion of magic, the coin would be patient zero.

Red Envelopes and Lucky Money on Chinese New Year

Nationality: Taiwanese-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/5/2019
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin Chinese

Main Text

Subject: So…I think the idea is that…the rule that my family uses is, if you’re still in school…you receive. And once you have a job, like a full-time job, then you give. Um. And then so, when we were kids, like, each set of parents would usually give an envelope to each kid. And I think when we were younger it was like…just like, pocket money, like, maybe five bucks, 10 bucks. And like, as we got older, maybe 20, 40.

Um. And then I think for…for all of us I think when we graduated high school it was like, a bigger sum?

Background

The subject is a 22-year-old Taiwanese-American woman in her fourth year at USC. Her parents are immigrants from Taiwan, and celebrating Chinese festivals have been a family tradition since childhood.

The interviewer is a 21-year-old Taiwanese-American student in his third year at USC. As someone who is from the same folk group, he is familiar with most major Chinese festivals.

Context

The subject was describing a ritual associated with the festival of Chinese New Year, called red envelopes (紅包), which contained lucky money (壓歲錢).

The subject additionally describes two contexts where lucky money was given. The first is a situation involving a family friend named Annie, who had been working this year and stated she wouldn’t be accepting any red envelopes. However, the subject’s parents still brought Annie a red envelope, causing “a little bit of conflict.” Annie ended up taking the envelope anyway. The subject reflects on the absurdity of the incident, thinking about her own future as a grad school student. She wonders if, by that point, the decision rule would still continue to make sense, given that she will probably be in school until the age of 30.

After the interviewer mentioned that there were lawsuits going around for children suing parents who had taken their lucky money, the subject laughed, and brought up an instance when her dad took her lucky money. During the sophomore summer year of high school, her family went to visit Taiwan for the first time in a couple of years. Her grandma on her dad’s side had given her a really big sum, supposedly for college. When her grandma gave the money to her, her dad told her that she had to turn over the sum of money to him, and afterwards, she “never saw a dime” of it.

Interviewer Analysis

These two contexts illuminate the purpose of red envelopes with relation to Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is one of many festivals that celebrate the passage of time. In the instance of Annie, the red envelope serves as a rite of passage. One demonstrates that they have grown up, by demonstrating they have earned enough money to handle the financial obligation of giving red envelopes to the children who haven’t. The conflict for Annie arose because even though Annie had believed she had earned the right to play the grown-up role in the red envelope ritual, the subject’s parents disagreed, and still put her in the position of being a child receiver. The fact that Annie still ended up taking the red envelope shows her lower status with regards to the more established adults in the ritual.

The second instance in Taiwan further shows the purpose of red envelopes as a coming-of-age ritual. Parents, like the subject’s father who took her red envelope money for college, have reasonable anxiety over whether children have the financial responsibility to handle large sums of money. They feel that as adults, they have the duty to safeguard that money. Safeguarding the money is not only a financial practicality—it is a social signal. It demonstrates to other adults that the parents are fulfilling their social duties as financially responsible adults, and it also teaches children about their cultural status: adults are higher than children, and the way to attain that height, is through practicing financial responsibility.

“Ya Sui Qian”

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 29th, 2013
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

So there is a tradition in China: Elder generations will give lucky money to younger generations during the Chinese Lunar New Year. The reason why parents choose to give their offspring lucky money come from a story as follows:

A long time ago, there was a monster named “Sui.” It came out every New Year’s Eve to touch little children’s heads when they were in deep sleep. Whoever being touched would had a fever the next morning, and would become idiots when the fever had gone…

There was a family who got their only son in their late years. So both of the parents loved their son a lot and were afraid that “Sui” would came to their son on New Year’s Eve. On New Year’s Eve, in order to prevent “Sui” from coming to their house, parents decided to play with their son till very late. They gave their son a piece of red paper and eight coins to play with. The boy wrapped the coins and unwrapped them, until he was tired and went to sleep. Later that night, “Sui” came to their house eventually. Wind blew out the candle, and “Sui” was about to touch on their son’s head. The moment when “Sui” extended its arm, the bronze coins in the red paper shone with brilliant light, and “Sui” was so scared that it escaped out of the house faster than the light. Other villagers learned the story, and they chose to follow the same thing that the family had done. No single child was touched by “Sui” and got fever thereafter, and that’s why Chinese people now still keep the tradition to give their children “Ya Sui Qian”–literally meaning the money to prevent “Sui” from coming during the Chinese New Year, which is also called “lucky money.”

 

How did you come across this folklore: “When I was in the elementary school, my Chinese teacher tried to explain what “Sui” means in Chinese, which means “one year.” Then she expanded the word with some phrases and Chinese traditions to help us better understand the meaning.”

Other information: “And this story was part of her explanation of “Sui” –marks one year in the Chinese lunar calendar with all kinds of related folklore.”

Lucky money is clearly a protective measure… in this story used by parents to prevent their children from becoming idiots. But as a whole, this story also represents the way that one word (“Sui”) can encapsulate not just a direct translation, but an entire story and is strongly tied to a tradition.