Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Let’s Grab That Red Pocket: The Reinvention of an Ancient Chinese Tradition in Digital Times

Fri, May 25, 11:00 to 12:15, Hilton Prague, Floor: M, Yoga Room (Cybex Health Club)

Abstract

This project aims to examine the cultural, economic and relational implication of the reinvention of this tradition, and investigates how it changes the landscape of social media, finance and the society as a whole. Drawing upon Mauss and later anthropologists’ conceptualisation on gift economy, the author closely examines Tencent’s annual report and conducts semi-structured interviews with 12 heavy users of the WeChat Red Pocket gifting. The author concludes that 1) utilising the existing networks and the moral values operating unconsciously in Chinese, the app succeed in shifting the cultural and economical paradigms; 2) the current fluid social context of the transitional China facilitates such changes in notions and practices; 3) the phenomenon of social comparison and social hierarchy are mirrored in the groups in which the red pocket are given out; 4) alternative economic practices enabled by the digital red pocket put the Chinese national capitalism, which tries to centralise any financial management in contestation.

Author