Hell money is a modernized form of joss paper printed to resemble legal tender bank notes. The notes are not an official form of recognized currency or legal tender as their sole intended purpose is to be offered as burnt offerings to the deceased as a solution to resolve their assumed monetary problems in the afterlife. This ritual has been practiced by modern Chinese and across East Asia since the late 19th century, and some Wicca-based faiths in recent years have adopted this practice. Early 20th century examples bore resemblance to minor commercial currency of the type issued by businesses across China until the mid-1940s.
The Huizi, issued in the year 1160, was the official banknote of the Chinese Southern Song dynasty. It has the highest amount of issuance among various banknote types during the Song dynasty. Huizi notes came on three-colour printed paper and their usage was heavily promoted by the government of the Southern Song dynasty, the Huizi were backed by 280,000 guàn of copper cash coins.
Mizuhiki is an ancient Japanese artform of knot-tying, most commonly used to decorate envelopes, called kinpū, which are given as gifts during holidays like Japanese New Year or for special occasions such as births and weddings or funerals. The colour of the cord depends on the occasion, or may signify the religious denomination of the giver at funerals.
Ancient Chinese coinage includes some of the earliest known coins. These coins, used as early as the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BCE), took the form of imitations of the cowrie shells that were used in ceremonial exchanges. The same period also saw the introduction of the first metal coins; however, they were not initially round, instead being either knife shaped or spade shaped. Round metal coins with a round, and then later square hole in the center were first introduced around 350 BCE. The beginning of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE), the first dynasty to unify China, saw the introduction of a standardised coinage for the whole Empire. Subsequent dynasties produced variations on these round coins throughout the imperial period. At first the distribution of the coinage was limited to use around the capital city district, but by the beginning of the Han dynasty, coins were widely used for such things as paying taxes, salaries and fines.
Chinese pre-wedding customs are traditional Chinese rituals prescribed by the Book of Rites, the Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial and the Bai Hu Tong condensed into a series of rituals now known as the 三書六禮. Traditionally speaking, a wedding that incorporates all six rites is considered a daaih chéui.
Chocolate coins, or chocolate money, are foil-covered chocolates in the shape of coins. They are usually created with milk chocolate.
Chinese culture attaches certain values to colors, such as considering some to be auspicious (吉利) or inauspicious (不利). The Chinese word for 'color' is yánsè (顏色). In Literary Chinese, the character 色 more literally corresponds to 'color in the face' or 'emotion'. It was generally used alone and often implied sexual desire or desirability. During the Tang dynasty (618–907), the word yánsè came to mean 'all color'. A Chinese idiom meaning 'multi-colored', Wǔyánliùsè (五顏六色), can also refer to 'colors' in general.
The cash or qian was a type of coin of China and the Sinosphere, used from the 4th century BC until the 20th century AD, characterised by their round outer shape and a square center hole. Originally cast during the Warring States period, these coins continued to be used for the entirety of Imperial China. The last Chinese cash coins were cast in the first year of the Republic of China. Generally most cash coins were made from copper or bronze alloys, with iron, lead, and zinc coins occasionally used less often throughout Chinese history. Rare silver and gold cash coins were also produced. During most of their production, cash coins were cast, but during the late Qing dynasty, machine-struck cash coins began to be made. As the cash coins produced over Chinese history were similar, thousand year old cash coins produced during the Northern Song dynasty continued to circulate as valid currency well into the early twentieth century.
A shūgi-bukuro is a special envelope in which money is given as a gift of celebration in Japan, especially at weddings or other auspicious occasions, such as a birth or celebrating a new home. The giver inserts the money into a shūgi-bukuro on which they have written their name, and the amount of money inside. In the case of weddings, the shūgi-bukuro is handed to the receptionist of the reception party; otherwise, the money is collected by the person themselves, with the envelopes acting as a record of who gave money and how much they gave. Shūgi-bukuro are sold at supermarkets and stationery stores.
Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, is a festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. Marking the end of winter and the beginning of spring, this festival traditionally takes place from Chinese New Year's Eve, the evening preceding the first day of the year, to the Lantern Festival, held on the 15th day of the year. The first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between 21 January and 20 February.
Yansheng Coins, commonly known as Chinese numismatic charms, refer to a collection of special decorative coins that are mainly used for rituals such as fortune telling, Chinese superstitions, and Feng shui. They originated during the Western Han dynasty as a variant of the contemporary Ban Liang and Wu Zhu cash coins. Over the centuries they evolved into their own commodity, with many different shapes and sizes. Their use was revitalized during the Republic of China era. Normally, these coins are privately funded and cast by a rich family for their own ceremonies, although a few types of coins have been cast by various governments or religious orders over the centuries. Chinese numismatic charms typically contain hidden symbolism and visual puns. Unlike cash coins which usually only contain two or four Hanzi characters on one side, Chinese numismatic charms often contain more characters and sometimes pictures on the same side.
WeChat red envelope is a mobile application developed by the Chinese technology company Tencent. The concept, also offered by its market competitors Alibaba and Baidu, is based on the Chinese tradition of hongbao, where money is given to family and friends as a gift. The application was launched by Tencent in January 2014 and has subsequently gained popularity, with Tencent reporting 2.3 billion transactions on 1 January 2016 alone.
Bride price, bride-dowry, bride-wealth, bride service or bride token, is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a groom or his family to the woman or the family of the woman he will be married to or is just about to marry. Bride dowry is equivalent to dowry paid to the groom in some cultures, or used by the bride to help establish the new household, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. Some cultures may practice both simultaneously. Many cultures practiced bride dowry prior to existing records.
WeChat Pay, officially referred to as Weixin Pay in China, is a mobile payment and digital wallet service by WeChat based in China that allows users to make mobile payments and online transactions. As of March 2016, WeChat Pay had over 300 million users. WeChat Pay reached 1.133 billion active users in 2023. WeChat Pay's main competitor in China and the market leader in online payments is Alibaba Group's Alipay. Alibaba company founder Jack Ma considered the red envelope feature to be a "Pearl Harbor moment", as it began to erode Alipay's historic dominance in the online payments industry in China, especially in peer-to-peer money transfer. The success prompted Alibaba to launch its own version of virtual red envelopes in its competing Laiwang service. Other competitors, Baidu Wallet and Sina Weibo, also launched similar features.
A red envelope is a monetary gift which is given during special occasions in Chinese and other East Asian societies.
The Hongwu Tongbao was the first cash coin to bear the reign name of a reigning Ming dynasty Emperor bearing the reign title of the Hongwu Emperor. Hongwu Tongbao cash coins officially replaced the earlier Dazhong Tongbao coins, however the production of the latter did not cease after the Hongwu Tongbao was introduced. The government of the Ming dynasty placed a greater reliance on copper cash coins than the Yuan dynasty ever did, but despite this reliance a nationwide copper shortage caused the production of Hongwu Tongbao cash coins to cease several times eventually leading to their discontinuation in 1393 when they were completely phased out in favour of paper money. In the year 1393 there were a total of 325 furnaces in operation in all provincial mints of China which had an annual output of 189,000 strings of cash coins which was merely 3% of the average annual production during the Northern Song dynasty.
The coinage of the Southern Tang dynasty consisted mostly of bronze cash coins while the coinages of previous dynasties still circulated in the Southern Tang most of the cash coins issued during this period were cast in relation to these being valued as a multiple of them.
Qianlong Tongbao is an inscription used on cash coins produced under the reign of the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty. Initially the Qianlong Tongbao cash coins were equal to its predecessors in their weight and quality but as expensive military expenditures such as the Ten Great Campaigns began to take their financial toll on the government of the Qing dynasty the quality of these cash coins started to steadily decrease. The weight of the Qianlong Tongbao was changed several times and tin was added to their alloy to both reduce costs and to prevent people from melting down the coins to make utensils. As the intrinsic value of these coins was higher than their nominal value many provincial mints started reporting annual losses and were forced to close down, meanwhile the copper content of the coinage continued to be lowered while the copper mines of China were depleting. The Qianlong era also saw the conquest of Xinjiang and the introduction of cash coins to this new region of the Qing Empire.
Standard cash, or regulation cash coins, is a term used during the Ming and Qing dynasties of China to refer to standard issue copper-alloy cash coins produced in imperial Chinese mints according to weight and composition standards that were fixed by the imperial government. The term was first used for Hongwu Tongbao cash coins following the abolition of large denomination versions of this cash coin series.
In Singapore, the Chinese New Year is celebrated primarily by Chinese Singaporeans, or members of the Chinese diaspora located there, who make up over 75% of Singapore's population. The holiday is the start of a new year based on the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. The majority of Chinese Singaporeans can trace their ancestry back to southern China, specifically Guangdong and Fujian. Outside of greater China, Singapore is the only country with an ethnic Chinese majority. The Chinese New Year is one of the gazetted public holidays in Singapore.
