This year, a popular game called "The War of Red Envelopes" was pretty hot on the Internet during the Chinese traditional Spring Festival. Many online societies took part in it, such as Sina's Micro Blog, Tencent's We Chat and BaiDu's TieBa. What's more interesting, CCTV's Spring Festival Party, which was one of CCTV's most popular programmes, also joined. So, "Red Envelopes" might be the theme of the last Spring Festival.
Traditional red envelopes are presents which parents send to their children on the first day of the Spring Festival. According to a legend in China, a crazy animal called "Sui" would hurt young kids on the first night of a new year, and to protect them, parents would put a small red bag under children's pillows and believe the light if money are able to hit "Sui". After lots of years, the bag has been changed to red envelopes and it's the symbol of best wishes between intimate ones. It's onlyChina's tradition!
Let's come back to online red envelopes. I think it might be held by AliPay firstly through which people give out money rather than real ones. It's more convient. Besides, it spread quickly aroundChina.
On the night of December 31st (China's traditional calendar), CCTV gave out uncountable red envelopes with uncountable RMB while the New Year Party was holding. You just need to launch We Chat on your smart phone, and do as what was in Taylor Swift's single Shake It Off: SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE. Shake your energy off and get money without any work! People were really crazy but you might get nothing after thousands of times' shaking. You just find families sitting around the wireless router, staring at the TV and the phone screen, shaking and screaming.
People are too crazy to stop, so arguments came out. A view was that it has made the New Year not to be the New Year, but just a business activity. However, what can we do? In my opinion, online red envelopes themselves aren't bad, but we should treat it normally, just as a funny game between friends. The tradition is developing, however, the root must be kept.
