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Q: Wedding gift ( To give, or not to give, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler...)
ok, Shakespeare you can shoot me now...
So, this young lady who works at the school I teach at is getting married in December and I am kicking around the idea of whether to give her a wedding gift or not. I do not know her well, she is neither a subordinate, nor supervisor, just an associate that I have exchanged a few pleasantries with time to time.
My concern is will the other staff members look at it like some sort of inapproriate gesture by a grand-standing Grand Stander and then commence to say/whisper/gossip/spread mean, wicked, nasty things about the snotty weiguoren who has his own office and twice the salary for working 1/4 the hours we put in and I really hate him and I wish a 200kg safe would fall out of the sky and smush him on the head!
Ok, those of you who know me know I don't really give a fk about what the other nongs think, I'm just throwing this out there because we do need a topic to discuss, and office gift-giving, no matter the occasion, seems a pretty universal concern for folks like us.
Would you do it and wish her well, after all, this will be her first marriage, or just keep out of it and plead cultural ignorance when I am berated for not giving a gift?
I would give a gift,do something outside the box a new rice cooker a toaster or a blender or a wok.something they can use,in there married life.
diverdude1:
That's what I was thinking too RR,,, see, I bought too many L'Occitane gift boxes on Double 11, so, I figured give one to her. haha,, yeah, I'm a cheapo (¥350). but I bet it's one of the nicest gfts she gets anyway,,, these are not the rich schools like Guangdong...
If she invites you to the wedding go along and give her the traditional red envelope with cash in it, otherwise I wouldn't bother.
Wedding gifts other than cash aren't really a thing in China and there's certainly no obligation if you aren't even invited to the wedding.
diverdude1:
Oh, is that the consensus, that no one really gifts anything but the Red Envelope? I thought that might be the case and actually that was one of the two or three reasons I was actually considering to give her a gift. I wanted to challenge the routine by actually walking in the office in front of everyone and handing her a nice physical, prettily wrapped gift box. Not just the same ol' Red Packet schlemiel, and certainly not just the pushing of a few buttons on WeChat.
I agree with Stiggs. I've never bothered unless I have been invited and that's the way I've seen my Chinese colleagues do it too.
Stigg's approach is the norm. As a general rule, other than bribery and face (show-off) demo dalurens have no idea of what 'gifts' are about. They are too sleazy, cunning, and narcissistic to learn what gifts are really about.
I would give a gift,do something outside the box a new rice cooker a toaster or a blender or a wok.something they can use,in there married life.
diverdude1:
That's what I was thinking too RR,,, see, I bought too many L'Occitane gift boxes on Double 11, so, I figured give one to her. haha,, yeah, I'm a cheapo (¥350). but I bet it's one of the nicest gfts she gets anyway,,, these are not the rich schools like Guangdong...
