LEI SI 利是

One of the freebees that some businesses will give out when new year comes around (my bank, for instance) is extra paperwork. As a result, I now have multiple calenders, and several different kinds of red envelopes for use if and when I hand out lei si (lucky money). And I don't know how I feel about this. Calenders are a potent reminder of mortality and death, bills coming due, the finiteness of everything, and lei si is customarily given by parents to their as yet unhitched children and equivalent kinfolk, and by businesses to government officials. It's not just older people gifting the young, but in a normal social context always married people to kids.

Note: in a bar or karaoke lounge, the owners, whatever their age and status, are "married", the customers similarly are "singles". The same holds for bosses vis-à-vis employees, gang leaders and their juniors.

So I have no idea when I'm ever going to use these red envelopes. I am a Caucasian, and consequently no one in their right mind realistically expects me to hand out lei si. Besides, I am quite single, and do not have any kids of my own, nor any young relatives who expect red packets at certain times of the year (the youngest kinfolk are in their teens and over a thousand miles away), and though I do know a few kids in Chinatown (because if you know people you also know kids) they are all accustomed to whites being inexplicable cheapos and not clued-in to the right way of doing things.



Sadly, I cannot expect to receive any lei si either.

You know, what with being white, and not being part of a social network with all the right traditions for this time of year. And of an age at which at which most people will assume that I'm hitched, or probably would not want to be reminded of being single, peculiar, and possibly damaged or deranged because otherwise I would and should be married by now.

White people are goofy anyway, and stand apart from normalcy.
Not aware of the proper way of doing things.
Kind of like space aliens.



Yeah, if I were married and had kids, I'd probably be wondering why I'm a magnet at this time, and where do all these little outstretched hands come from, good heavens, they're all over the place!

安康興旺，心想事成 ...

恭喜發財，利是逗來！

Instead I'll just hide behind my veneer of occidental inscrutability for the next few weeks. As well as my abnormal singleness. I am so white I glow in the dark, also a monumental cheapo, and I don't know how things should be done.





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