The Chinese cut right to the chase - they don't exchange gifts on New Years, they exchange cold, hard cash. You just get some cash and stuff it into red envelopes called Ang Pow and hand em over - simple. Or is it? Turns out, it's not as straightforward as I thought....
First, the general rule is that the married give to the unmarried. However, it is not a strict rule so I am able to hand over some red envelopes. Next, you cannot hand over any old amount - you can make a big mistake doing that. It's all about the numbers - never hand out an odd amount, only an even amount. Next, some numbers are better than others.
The Good Numbers
2 - in Cantonese, the number two is a homophone for the character for "easy."
3 - in Mandarin, the number three is a homophone for the character for "birth."
8 - the luckiest number of all, eight is pronounced "ba" and is similar to the "fa" or wealth.
The Bad Number
4 - the worst number of all as its pronunciation, "si" is very close to that of the pronunciation for the word for death.
So, some better numbers are 88, 188, 288, etc.
2 comments:
Yeah babe.. 8,888,888 is even better!! Give me some!!
Do you take Monopoly money? Dodo!
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