Blog #16: Lucky Money - Traditional Custom in the Modern Life

What is "Lucky Money"?

If you come to Vietnam during Tet holiday, you would be quite surprised when seeing the adults give the children the tiny red envelops containing some amount of money. We call it "Li xi" or "tien mung tuoi". It is Lucky Money.

This is one of the dispensable parts of Tet holiday. It is traditional custom begun long long ago and last until now. This custom origins from a legend. It is said that there was a evil living on a tree. That evil harmed children to gain more power in order to get higher level. In the village, there was an old couple who had only one child. They were so scared of that evil. At that time, in Lunar New Year's Eve, there were some Gods passed by. They wanted to prevent the child from the evil. Thus, they made up themselves as some golden coins. Then, the old couple put the golden coins into the red bags and put under the child's pillow. This action made the evil scared and could protect the child.

According to this story, people think that money in red bags could give the children the safety and peace in New Year, Lucky Money become a traditional custom from that.

Lucky Money in Modern Life

Nowadays, Vietnamese keep doing this action on Lunar New Year. But not give to the small children, Lucky Money is also given to the different ages, from the young to the elderly. The eagerness of everyone who both receive and give makes this action more meaningful.
However, the more modern the life is, the more complicated this custom becomes. Lucky Money still brings the insightful meaning, in modern life, people consider it as a way to lobby or to please the higher standard people.
As a result, some people would evaluate the value of others via the amount of Lucky Money Bag. The more amount it is, it means you give your boss more value to be considered in the New Year.

And more, Lucky Money becomes the debt of each household. If there is some families come to your house to visit during New Year and they give your children some Lucky Money Bag, you would think of the way to pay them back a visit and the same amount of Lucky Money Bag, even give more.
Especially, sometimes, some one still compares the amount of Lucky Money Bags of each household to each others.

On my perspective, Lucky Money should be kept the original meaning, just very little amount of money is symbolized for a token of good luck and a wish of many best things for the receivers on the incoming new year. For the poor families, you could give more as a way to donate. I think Li xi or Lucky Money should be protect to remain its own meaning instead of making it into other personal aims.

Lunar New Year and Lucky Money are always the traditional event. In this busy and modern life, they bring us the traditional value for us to think back. The life is developing too fast, so the old value could be changed a bit. Anyway, the insightful core of this custom should be glorified and remained to make the national Ego.

All in all, I wanna say "Happy Lunar New Year to All, I wish all of you peace, good luck, good health and many best things coming in New Year"