BEIJING (CHINA DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The Spring Festival hongbao, or red envelope, a child receives as a festival gift can contain as much as 10,000 yuan ($2,000) or as little as 100 yuan, although the amount is generally several hundred yuan.

Also, the average sum varies from province to province.

A recent survey by Wacai.com shows on average a hongbao in Fujian province contains 3,500 yuan － the highest in the country - while those in Zhejiang province and Beijing contain 3,100 yuan and 2,900 yuan, respectively.

The average for Shanghai is 1,600 yuan and that for Tianjin and Jiangsu province is 1,000 yuan. Incidentally, all of these places are in the eastern coastal region, the most developed region in China.

The average amount in a hongbao in other provinces and regions is 300-800 yuan.

But remarkably, even though it is one of China's richest provinces, the lowest amount is in Guangdong province - on average a Spring Festival hongbao in Guangdong contains only 50 yuan.

The difference in the amount notwithstanding, one thing is common - the hongbao has been growing larger with each passing year and it is becoming a heavy burden on many people, especially young wage earners.

People love hongbao because they believe they bring good luck and build bonds between friends and family members.

But a red envelope also instils fear even hate among many, as they have become such a cumulative burden that almost every hongbao duty-bound benefactor cries out: "I can't afford it anymore."

Even for people in provinces where the average hongbao amount is not at all high, the cumulative burden is still relatively high.

For instance, 300 yuan may not be a big amount.

But when you visit, or host, relatives and friends during the seven-day Spring Festival holiday, you are bound to meet toddlers, school boys and girls, nephews and nieces, younger siblings, cousins and friends.

Imagine how many 100-yuan bills you will need to hand out to so many people.

Han Lei, a young man who works in Shandong province, told a journalist covering the Spring Festival travel rush that he wished he had not succeeded in obtaining the precious train ticket to his hometown in Heilongjiang province, "because it gives me a headache to even think that it (hongbao) won't be counted as settled until I've forked out 20,000-30,000 yuan."

A few days ago, some media outlets in Shaanxi province reported a tear-jerking story about an aged couple who began collecting recyclables from pavements two months before Spring Festival so they could sell them and have enough money to prepare four red envelopes of 500 yuan each for their four grandchildren.

And a couple in their late 50s in Hubei province quarrelled so violently on Lunar New Year's Day over how much money they should give their grandchildren that the man threatened to kill himself because his wife refused to proffer the 6,000 yuan he had planned to give their grandchildren as gift red envelopes.

Hongbao are mainly for children but adults also get it as lucky money.

For example, people prepare hongbao for their elderly parents and grandparents and other aged relatives back home during the lunar year-end holidays.

Besides, giving hongbao is not confined to family members or Spring Festival, as people also give money as gifts to colleagues, friends and relatives on such occasions as marriage, funerals or to celebrate a friend's child admission to a prestigious university.

This second kind of hongbao, in a way, has become a form of fundraising or mutual loan between friends.

You invite me to your wedding, and I come with a hongbao. And when I get married, you come with an equal-sized or slightly larger red envelope.

Like the gift money for kids, this congratulatory hongbao keeps enlarging every year, leaving everyone groaning.

Everybody complains but they all feel mei banfa, literally "no method" meaning they "can't do anything about it," because the custom is a matter of honor, or mianzi (literally face but meaning to save face), which Chinese value more than anything else in their social life.

However, Guangdong provides a banfa.

Guangdong is one of China's richest provinces, and has the largest GDP in the country.

Yet it is the least generous when it comes to hongbao: a trivial 50 yuan, according to the Wacai.com survey.

In fact, it is even smaller, according to my experience.

I am a Guangdong native and people generally give a kid only 10-20 yuan.

Many people expressed surprise over Guangdong residents' "miserliness" in their online comments while trying to figure out why the richest group of people gives the smallest hongbao.

The main reason, I believe, is that Guangdong was the first province in China to open up to the outside world and usher in new thoughts on wealth and society.

Guangdong residents have discarded many old customs while favouring new ways of handling human relations.

With regard to giving hongbao, they attach more importance to its role as a token of love rather than the derivative function as a means of striking loans among friends.

Guangdong people are apparently smart enough to realise that the reciprocal hongbao debt among friends, in reality, does not substantially provide mutual financial benefit.

Instead, it creates a false sense of possession and anxiety about owing a debt.

Guangdong residents, who were the earliest to accept the market competition concept, have become accustomed to the idea that one must depend on one's own hard work in the pursuit of wealth and success rather than rely on help from guanxi (social relations).

They also know their earlier-than-others awakening to the market concept helped their province to become the strongest economy in China.

And their practice of limiting the size of hongbao for children would also prevent the next generation from developing the habit of relying on external help.

Seeking relief from the hongbao headache may not be a matter of emergency now but learning from Guangdong residents an effective new idea about individual efforts, wealth buildup and human relations is of substantial importance.

The author is a folklore teacher at Ningde Normal University in Fujian province.

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