Jenny Lao-Phillips
As Chinese New Year approaches, we can see people getting ready everywhere, ordering New Year food, buying red envelopes, and, earlier than before, they have started preparations by exchanging their money for crispy new bank notes for Lai Si (red packets). As the day gets closer to Chinese New Year’s Eve, more people are lining up in the banks for new bank notes, so in order to beat the crowd, many of my acquaintances have been withdrawing new notes since last month. It seems that among the many customs and traditions during the Chinese New Year, giving out Lai Si is still first on the must-do list.
Nowadays, it has become practice that only adults who are married have to give out Lai Si, and anyone who is single is on the receiving end. But I’m surprised to find out that traditionally all adults who have joined society (I guess that means started working), married or not, should give out Lai Si to children, and usually only to children in the family and extended family. For kids to receive Lai Si from other adults, usually just neighbors or friends of the family, there are certain customs they need to practice.
One such custom is the tradition of ‘Selling Laziness 賣懶 ’. According to the records, there were two practices. One of these said that on Chinese New Year’s Eve, before midnight, parents would have their children go out into the streets and shout ‘Selling Laziness’. Then, adults in the neighborhood would give them Lai Si. In this way, the children would have sold their sloths and it was believed that they would be hard-working in the coming year.
Another practice of ‘Selling Laziness’ goes together with the additional tradition of ‘Sending the god of Fortune’. On Chinese New Year’s Eve, children would write the words ‘財神 god of Fortune’ in calligraphy on a piece of red paper, then before midnight, they would knock on their neighbors’ doors saying “Sending the god of Fortune”. The event is not unlike the trick-or-treat custom on Halloween in the West, except that children do not have to dress up in costumes. And instead of candies, adults would give Lai Si to the kids as they accept the god of Fortune into their houses. Of course, those who refuse to open their doors or offer Lai Si to the kids would not be tricked; having rejected the ‘god of Fortune,’ they just wouldn’t have prosperity in the New Year.
Here, together with the red piece of paper adorned with the words ‘god of Fortune,’ some children would sneak in another piece of paper with the word ‘Lazy’ written on it. If the receiver offered Lai Si to the kids and took the ‘Lazy’ paper together with the ‘god of Fortune’ paper without noticing it, the kids would then have successfully sold their laziness. So, aside from gaining pocket money for the New Year, they will also become hard-working children. What happens to the people who unknowingly bought ‘Laziness’? Well, they already got the god of Fortune, I guess they didn’t need to be hardworking the next year.
While some Chinese New Year traditions have been widely practiced throughout the years, there are some interesting ones that have been forgotten, or have slowly faded out due to changes in society. As the level of trust decreases in the neighborhood, parents probably do not think it is safe anymore to let children go out at night ‘selling laziness’. And if someone knocked on our doors at night sending the ‘god of Fortune’, there may be a higher chance we would call the police instead of opening the door. I guess community social capital is a small price to pay for rapid economic development in society. Jenny Lao-Phillips
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