Other Than Red Envelopes, What Else Can Express Affection?

Other Than Red Envelopes, What Else Can Express Affection?

Over the past few years, two things have quietly become more and more common: holidays, and red envelopes. The traditional holidays I remember each carried a lasting meaning—some were about bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new, some about honoring ancestors, some about praying for reunion, some about respecting elders. Even with the addition of Labor Day, National Day, Women’s Day, and Children’s Day, the content still felt clear and the meaning well-defined. Up until the point when Christmas was thrown into the mix as well, everything still seemed fairly reasonable.

And then chaos broke loose. Any two numbers that could be pieced together into some kind of meaning suddenly started being called a holiday. But what are all these extra holidays actually for? When you think about it, probably only four things: sending red envelopes, shopping, eating, and booking a room. Seen this way, red envelopes also seem to have quietly moved from something reserved for holidays and special occasions into everyday life at around the same time. Sending red envelopes suddenly stopped being an unspoken social practice and became an important means of maintaining relationships. The situation is awkward: when no one has anything to say, you can send a red envelope to liven things up; when you’ve just joined a new group and don’t know a single familiar face, you can send one as a way of introducing yourself. If you’re promoting an app, if you don’t give out red envelopes, it feels like you can’t even begin your marketing campaign… Those who send them seem endlessly enthusiastic, and those who grab them treasure every few cents as if it were gold, often happier than if they’d just received a year-end bonus. But why did this “red-envelope economy” suddenly explode in popularity? Other than this, have we really lost the ability to express affection?

I think the main reason red envelopes have become so popular is probably that Chinese people are gradually losing the spirit of subtlety and indirectness, and becoming more and more simple and direct. When you talk to me, you may want to build emotional connection, but the effect of words varies from person to person. Sometimes they work well, sometimes very badly, and sometimes one careless remark can offend someone. But a red envelope is perfectly clear in its purpose, method, and effect. It saves the trouble of back-and-forth exchange and the effort of dealing with people one by one. It’s convenient for the sender and reassuring for the receiver. No one can guarantee the results, perhaps, but this kind of “big-data marketing,” casting a wide net, always carries the hope that “something might come of it.” Besides, these days, who really has the time to sit quietly and talk about matters of the heart?

Most people are being dragged forward by the accelerating pace of society, and so we keep inventing all kinds of ways to save time, all kinds of products to make life more convenient. We invented cars, trains, airplanes, computers, mobile phones… The original purpose of each of these things was to make life easier and save people more time. But we have not spent every minute we saved on things that may truly be beautiful—like looking at a flower, listening to the wind, writing a poem, singing a song. Instead, we are always impatient to use the time we saved to do even more things. And so the pace of the whole world grows faster. We invent more things to save more time, then use that time on more and more tasks. The world is like a multistage rocket launching into the sky—faster and faster, unable to stop.

Along with this comes a change in emotion itself. On the one hand, as the pace quickens, the cost of emotional communication becomes higher and higher, so we increasingly prefer simple rather than complicated ways of expressing feeling. Or perhaps emotional communication itself is no longer an inner need, but a social one. We can maintain our presence—and also “communicate feelings”—through red envelopes and likes, while often being unwilling to write long letters or engage in slow, lingering conversations. On the other hand, technological progress has also made it hard for emotion to settle and deepen. Profound, enduring feeling needs the accumulation of time and distance. In the past, when you missed someone, you might go three or five months—or three, five, even seven years—without any news. Day by day, longing would naturally accumulate into letters or poetry. But now, with a tap of the hand, you can send a message, make a phone call, or even video chat immediately. If you can’t reach someone for two or three hours, it feels almost like the end of the world. Emotional release now comes faster than emotional accumulation, and naturally, less is left behind.

Still, if I really had to choose between long, enduring longing and fast, convenient communication, I would probably still choose the latter. In that sense, technology is not without its merits. So from this perspective, the various shortcomings brought by technology may still be shortcomings of technology itself; when we are able to overcome that obstacle, perhaps those side effects will also be appropriately weakened. Even if they do not disappear entirely, they may at least remain within a controllable range, like acceptable food additives.

And red envelopes are not entirely without value either. At the very least, they can serve as a touchstone. As Eileen Chang said, someone willing to spend money on you is the one who truly loves you. If all they do is sweet-talk you endlessly without being willing to spend a penny, then nine times out of ten, that love is fake.