Chinese New Year 2020: Electronical Red-envelopes, Reunion Dinner, Gift Shopping And Buddhist Teachings
Author: Witcoin Miner
Keywords: #ChineseNewYear, #gift, #festival, #celebration, #spending
Length: 1293 words
Posted on: 15th January 2020
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The changes of the seasons are a popular time to hold reverence for local gods and goddesses. Nearly every culture has a unique holiday in which they celebrated, venerated and worshiped. For as long as there has been humankind, there has been celebration. The Chinese New Year is one of the world popular holidays celebrating the change of season into Spring and this festival will last to be a riotous week-long affair. In Thailand, during this occasion, Chinese-ethnic Thais and native Thais will join in celebrating the seasons whether or not it is a changing of the weather as in Southeast Asian region there is no Spring but every Thais will always find a cause for revelry.
Gift giving is still a strong tradition. The most common Chinese New Year gifts are red envelopes having money in, and are believed to bring good luck because they are red. With the emergence of the modern eWallet and mobile banking, a new way, limitless tool for sending money to friends, family, and colleagues, each user can add money by linking a bank account and managing money on their mobile phone or computer. Most people at this holiday time increasingly send red envelopes electronically with short messages to acquaintances instead of giving the traditional paper-made red envelope gift.
Shopping is also a center part of this festival for people in this consumerism era. On this day, millions of Asian: Chinese and Chinese descendants in countries outside China including non-Chinese are flocking to malls, outlets, department stores, as well as online retail sites to get their loved one’s gifts this holiday season. If consumerism is viewed as the newest global religion in the digital society, Chinese New Year is another sacred time of the holy calendar for its devotees to make devotional offerings to their sacred brands and hip and cool services.
Many believe that Buddhists rise above this kind of materialism. In fact, Buddhist teachings never say that being a sucker for a sale is seen as a ‘bad Buddhist’ because as long as existing in this world, everyone has to breathe, eat, wear clothes, pay taxes, and devotedly upgrade to the latest iPhone each year! All have to consume to survive, but should aspire to consume in a way that prevents harm and promotes benefit and true happiness.
Psychological studies have shown that learning how to spend money can improve overall happiness and bolster life satisfaction, for example, if people learn how to spend their money toward the things that truly make them happy, they may all be, at least a little bit, happier. Researchers suggest buy more experiences, fewer material goods, and use money to benefit others because experiences come with an additional benefit: when people buy stuff for themselves, they end up by themselves with their stuff. Imagine like people on their phone playing a video game or whatever else it might be, they are often alone with their device. Whereas experiences, yes, some experiences can be done solo, but many, many experiences have built into them that they are social. And social nature is another principle to benefit others and return with a higher level of satisfaction.
Venerable P. A. Payutto in his book named ‘A Middle Way for the Market Place’ says the purpose of spending and consumption is not to satisfy our desires for comfort or ego-gratification, but rather to enhance the quality of life for ourselves and others, and to benefit the environment. This means harmonizing our own interests with those of others and with our environment.
Practically, when deciding to buy any item, see whether the purchase is aligned with our deepest values. Let’s be more specific, taking an example of cloth which is the top hit item bought by shoppers at all time in almost all shopping malls including online market places. And the clothing fashion has evolved dramatically during the past century and it affected people’s habit of spending for the garment.
In 1993 the garment industry saw the rise of fast-fashion. The aim of this model is to make trendy clothes off the runway quick, cheap, and disposable. Imagine about retailers such as H&M and Zara, they make their money by squeezing the time between trends, frequently filling their stores with new collections of cheap clothing that breaks down quickly enough for shoppers to come in for the next collection. Fast fashion has democratized fashion by making clothing more affordable and giving rise to greater variety. But this comes at a grave environmental cost.
Environmental record has shown that all textiles are trashed each year, ultimately ending up in a landfill or incinerated. Perhaps people may have seen in-store recycling bins with retailers like H&M implying that the old clothes buyers bring in will be recycled to make new clothing. But in fact, less than one percent of their clothing is actually recycled to make new clothing. That is because the blend of fibers that make their clothes do not break down easily.
Even if people donate their clothes, they still often get dumped because what charities cannot sell or give away are sold by the ton to buyers in the developing world and still end up in landfills in those countries.
As the holiday season is in full swing and many are still scrambling to buy gifts for loved ones, you might consider gifting experiences or something hand-made, eco-friendly rather than store bought garb. Or another option suggested is to thrift shop if people just only want to buy something for themselves to celebrate this holiday, then buy one used item instead of new this year; in this way, the amount of CO2 emissions for goods production saved would be equivalent to removing half a million cars from the road for a year if everyone joins in.
Buddhist spending culture on holidays is not limited with material satisfaction but including things like recreation and spiritual good causes like meditation workshops and retreats or supporting ongoing meditation practice. Clearly, it is important that Buddhists need to identify and prioritize things they value the most: food and shelter are first priority. This is to ensure the balance of spending in the spiritual category without failing to meet other obligations in life. This expresses a recognition that the spiritual life sustains us, and we Buddhists prioritize supporting ourselves and ultimately others and the environment in this way.
New Year holidays is not only presenting a good reason to spending money to reach life satisfaction but also to getting together of family members in this special occasion. Drinking and feasting are going to be a plenty as they are part of celebrating. The New Year’s Eve dinner called ‘reunion dinner’ is believed to be the most important meal of the year. There can be moments of joy and connection, but there are people at this time who find themselves struggling with being around family as some family members in particular, their parents who can see their grown-ups children always being a child and end up triggering them in this reunion time into old, less healthy behaviors. And when people are triggered, freedom seems impossible to find during the celebration when it supposes to be the time of being happy; as they are stressed, their attention narrows and fixates. To survive this type of holiday gathering nightmare, mindfulness is at its best as it helps create a little bit more space and freedom to relate themselves to others in ways that make them feel fully alive.
Whether or not you: our Blogg’s readers/visitors are celebrating this Chinese New Year, Buddhist teachings will always inspire you to bring mindfulness to all of your consumption. Practicing gratitude, you feel rich, full, and enough. Wish all a happy holiday!
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