NEW BOOK: LES ENVELOPPES ROUGES (RED ENVELOPES)

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V21 2018 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 21, Number 25, June 24, 2018, Article 8

NEW BOOK: LES ENVELOPPES ROUGES (RED ENVELOPES)

In Chinese culture it is common practice to give gifts of money in little red envelopes ("Cultural Revolution style red packets”), particularly for the Chinese New Year. The practice continues today even among Chinese families settled elsewhere in the world. The British Museum numismatic collection include several hundred money envelopes, some found locally in a Chinese supermarket in central London.

In her latest Chinese Money Matters blog, Helen Wang of the British Museum reviewed a 2011 book on the topic of these colorful popular culture artifacts. Here's an excerpt - see the complete post online for the table of contents and other information. -Editor

A few blogs back – no. 45 “Cultural Revolution Style Red Packets” – Lyce Jankowski left a comment, drawing my attention to Chengan SUN’s work on red envelopes: a PhD and a book, titled Les enveloppes rouges: évolution et permanence des themes d’une image populaire chinoise (Le Moulin de l’Etoile, 2011. ISBN 978-2-915428-37-7). A copy of this book has just arrived at the Dept of Coins and Medals, British Museum, and I’ll outline the contents below.

Almost 200 red envelopes are illustrated in the book, from the author’s collection of over 500 pieces.

Red envelopes, the development and permanence of themes in a Chinese popular imagery

Red envelopes are a particular kind of popular and ritual imagery in China. Their existence has been confirmed by the appearance before the 10th century of similar types of envelopes. They have always preserved an important social and political function concerning relations between generations and social classes.

Red envelopes have had a ritual importance in Confucian society which uses the Lunar calendar for social commemorations in a society predominantly based on agriculture. On the one hand, they maintain links between individuals for events or ceremonies concerning important social events such as births, weddings, birthdays or even professional promotions, acquiring a new flat, or a funeral. In addition, they are the expression of a classical tradition based on images and the recurrent expressions using four ideograms written on them.

Popular images such as those found in New Year’s prints and paper cuts have been of great importance, but in the last decade or so, this has been decreasing on the Mainland, but more so in Taiwan, in favour of humorous and ephemeral industrialized products, more in line with the testes of an urbanized society, where other commercial products (phone cards, labels, advertising) use similar themes.

To read the complete articles, see:
48. RED ENVELOPES – THE DEVELOPMENT AND PERMANENCE OF THEMES IN CHINESE POPULAR IMAGERY (https://chinesemoneymatters.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/48-red-envelopes-the-development-and-permanence-of-themes-in-chinese-popular-imagery/)
45. “CULTURAL REVOLUTION STYLE (https://chinesemoneymatters.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/45-cultural-revolution-style-red-packets/)

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Wayne Homren, Editor

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com

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V21 2018 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE