Inheritance And Vicissitude Of The Red Envelope In The Presence Of Technology

The custom of ‘send Red envelope' has been inherited for a long time in China,and the history of the red envelope can be traced back to the lucky money that was born in Han Dynasty.Wechat red packets,by contrast,are produced in 2014,but the scope and frequency of application of wechat red packets is far more than entity red envelope.Wechat red packets are applied to more and more scenes.However,in the process of using,people find that the meaning and emotional experience of wechat red packet is different from entity red envelope.This paper takes the using of wechat red packets in the N residential quarters as an example,and uses the entity red envelope culture as a reference.The paper also analyzes that inheritance and of wechat red packets inherits and eliminates the meaning of the entity red envelopes.The study finds that wechat red packets partly inherited the cultural meanings and cultural function of traditional red envelopes.It like entity red envelopes with gift attribute,the moral of human to ward off bad luck,weaken the value of exchange,and with functions of maintaining social interaction and instrumental function.On the other hand,wechat red packets reduce the meanings of traditional red envelopes.In the Spring Festival,in the flow way of the wechat red packets,the dutiful-kind idea cannot reflect.And it can't consolidate family relationships and strengthen the family structure.In the wedding,‘not presences of interaction'of wechat red packet has led to the lack of social presence and the failure of indentify of the wedding.In the practice of wechat red packets,we can also find the meaning conflicts between entity red envelopes and wechat red packets.These conflicts prompt wechat technology to adjust itself to produce‘face to face red packets'.Therefore,through the comparative study of wechat red packets and traditional red envelopes,it is found that technological development does not one-way effect on folk custom.Technological development and folk custom show a complementary relationship.