"Gift Giving - The Chinese Way" by Asian Female

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Ah the holidays… the joy of racking your brain for good gift ideas and trying to come up with innovative ones year after year. Why do families always seem the hardest? I haven’t been a part of any non-Chinese family so I can’t really say that they seem to be the most difficult but it sure seems that way when I talk to other people. There are so many rules associated with gift giving in the Chinese culture: 

  1. avoid anything with the number four because it sounds like “death” 
  2. avoid gifts in the color white because it’s the color you wear at funerals 
  3. avoid clocks because it symbolizes their time to die 
  4. avoid odd numbers because they bring bad luck 
  5. avoid giving shoes because it means you want the person to leave you 
  6. avoid giving books because it sounds like “loss” 
  7. avoid giving umbrellas because it sounds like “separation” 
  8. avoid giving anything with sharp edges because it symbolizes severing relations 
  9. avoid giving gifts that would make it impossible for the recipient to reciprocate or else you would cause the person to lose face
As if that’s not enough, there’s also a rule that states the recipient must decline a gift offering two or three times before accepting. Can you say AI –YAH?!

Comments

J said…
You know a great website to help coordinate gift giving is elfster.com. You can create wishlists so that people can know what is you want and they choose what to get you. Kind of like a registry. It can also facilitate secret santas for groups.
December 10, 2008 at 11:38 AM
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