China Spotlights

Chinese New Year: more traditional and more digital!

14.02.2018

In China, New Year’s is the most important holiday of the year. In contrast to the western calendar, our New Year’s Day is not a fixed date, but is determined by the moon. New Year’s Day is the day of the new moon between January 21 and February 21. This year, it will be February 16. This is when the Year of the Dog will begin and the Year of the Rooster will end. On a side note, the dog represents wealth, stability and social behavior, so the Chinese expect this coming year to be a successful and harmonious one.

A country celebrates the New Year and everyone is on the road

Around the Chinese New Year (also called Spring Festival), the entire country is upside down. Above all, the Chinese become VERY mobile on this date. According to an iclick community, iResearch Inc.  survey, 63% of my compatriots will be traveling around New Year’s Day. The caravan sets in motion about a week before, and the last travelers are back about a week after New Year’s. In many cases, these two weeks are the vacation weeks in Chinese companies. The entire period even has its own name: “Spring Festival Transport” ("春运"). People travel for two reasons: Either they spend their vacations with their families living in far-away provinces, or they go on a “real” vacation, for example to a foreign country. Car and train are the most important means of transport for this purpose: In 2017, 356 million train tickets were sold in New Year’s season. Just like the Christmas holidays in Christian countries, Spring Festival in China is a family holiday and for many, it is the only opportunity in the entire year to visit their parents or relatives who live far from their place of work or study.

Not unknown to us either: emotional stress during family celebrations

Although China is a country where the family has traditionally been very important, something has changed in recent years when it comes to people’s feelings about family gatherings. It is especially the younger generations who feel increasingly uneasy on these occasions. The reason is that when young people come back home after having studied or worked all year in another town, parents and relatives tend to ask many questions. iResearch Inc. has identified the “Top-7 annoying questions” during the Chinese New Year celebrations in an online survey:

  1. How much money have you earned this past year? (50.2%)
  2. How is your job / your career going these days? (41.5%)
  3. You know XYZ, don’t you (someone the same age / a family member)? His/her future prospects are excellent! (36%)
  4. Have you bought an apartment in the city where you live/work? (28.5%)
  5. Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? (27.4%)
  6. When are you going to get married? (28%)
  7. Why don’t you have a child yet? (18%)

The family at home is mostly interested in professional / material success and family planning, with a rather traditional understanding of what “successful” or “correct” mean. There is a clash of opposite values and approaches to life. To give you an example: Older people think that a young man who works for a state company definitely has great future prospects, whereas a job in a foreign company or a start-up is often not understood and frequently associated with exploitation. Another example is family planning. An old Chinese saying puts the classic view of the family in a nutshell: “There are three types of disrespectful behavior, the worst of which is not having descendants.” (不孝有三,无后为大). Yet, in the meantime, many young couples prefer not having children or having them later in life. Of course, this type of “western” lifestyle is not understood at their homes and results in annoying discussions.

Recent return to traditional value concepts

In spite of all that, it becomes evident that there is a certain movement in the opposite direction as well. As in western societies, we can observe a return to classic value concepts. Even Chinese pop culture is following this trend. Jay Chou, the King of Pop in Chinese music, has written a song titled “Listen to Mum”. This song describes the important role mothers play in a child’s development and career and suggests that we should give them more credit for that. The song is super popular and has changed many rebellious teenagers‘ attitudes towards their mothers. In contrast, not long ago, the media reported that hip hop singer PG One, who was discovered in a TV talent show, had an affair with one of his older friends‘ wife. That was a great scandal and was discussed violently in the social media. All of a sudden, his songs were criticized as well, as was hip hop music in general, because of vulgar lyrics about sex, drugs and violence. The popularity of PG One and hip-hop culture overall decreased significantly. Meanwhile, the SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film & Television) has prohibited the presence of any form of hip hop, both life performances and songs, in the media.

The perfect family as the new advertising setting for New Year’s

This shows that there is definitely a “small change in values”, so it is not surprising that New Year’s has also become more relevant again lately and is celebrated in a more conscious way. Also, more and more of my friends and acquaintances enjoy immersing themselves in extended family life and reviving rituals they remember from their childhood. Yes, it can be annoying from time to time, but it also gives you a lot of satisfaction. Many brands have jumped this bandwagon quickly and choose a family setting for their advertising campaigns. TV commercials manage very successfully to touch the consumers’ hearts, and increase their sales, with their representation of a warm family atmosphere and intergenerational togetherness. People also enjoy gathering in front of the TV screens to watch the traditional Spring Festival gala, whose importance in China is comparable to that of the Superbowl in the USA.

Top sellers: digital “Red Envelopes as New Year’s gifts

In China, we give away presents during the New Year’s celebrations. It is indispensable to bring little gifts when you visit your relatives, especially for the host. Common presents are beautiful fruit baskets, and especially imported foods (like expensive chocolate or wine). The second gift variant are “red packets”, red paper envelopes containing money. Originally, it was the children who received “red packets” from older relatives or guests.

However, since Tencent (the company owning WeChat) and AliPay have developed the online version of the “red packet”, it has increasingly become a gift among people of the same age, classmates, friends, brothers and sisters, colleagues, superiors and employees, virtually everyone, no matter what generation they belong to. The easiest way to give away digital red packets is to transfer money to the AliPay dialogue window. 

The actual amount is usually not very high. This is mostly about bringing good luck to the person receiving the gift. Due to their symbolism, 88.88 o 8.88 RMB, 66.66 or 6.66 RMB or 5.20 RMB are the amounts transferred most frequently: The pronunciation of the figure “8” in Chinese is similar to that of the Chinese word for “wealth”, the figure “6” stands for good luck in the Chinese culture, and “5-2-0” is pronounced similarly to “I love you”. Overall, these online money transfers with their symbolism perfectly match the joyful and cheerful mood of the Chinese New Year. According to iiMedia, 14.2 billion red envelopes were sent digitally on New Year’s Eve 2017. 

Companies are also eagerly playing the game of the red packets with their customers. In 2017, AliPay distributed 200 million RMB (about 26 million Euros) as “digital red packets” directly among AliPay users. Additionally, Tencent donated 250 million RMB for some kind of Pokémon Go: All over the country, virtual red envelopes were distributed in 4.25 million locations (usually shopping centers) which users could find via smartphone.

Conclusion: everything remains special!

For us in China, the New Year is a very special season, and it seems that the great relevance of these two weeks to families and friends will definitely not dwindle. On the contrary: After years of orientation at the west and at material and individualistic values, it is gaining importance again, because it gives us a feeling of unity and of having an emotional home. Both seem to become more important again in present-day China, even though in a more modern interpretation, as is demonstrated by the example of the red envelopes.