BEIJING (SCMP): China tech giant Tencent reportedly gave giant sugar canes to its employees as Laba Festival gifts, a carnival day that marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year period.
Online video footage shows employees each holding a sugar cane in a glamorous office building, waiting for a worker to peel and cut them.
It was reported that the Shenzhen-based tech giant offered the gift as a New Year wish, because the Cantonese idiom 'dim gwo luk ze', literally translates as “straighter than sugar cane” and means “all is well”.
As the Year of the Snake begins on Jan 29, many Chinese companies are offering Chinese New Year gifts to employees.
The Post has gathered together some of the most unconventional and bizarre presents given to employees.
Lucky red knickers
Some people have posted online that their companies gave them red underwear as Lunar New Year gifts.
It is a traditional belief that wearing red underwear, socks and waistbelts on what is referred to as a person’s year of fate, which means every 12th year that the zodiac sign matches with the zodiac sign of their birth year, will bring them good luck.
Even in the year not of their zodiac signs, many prefer to wear red during Lunar new year celebrations, as red is generally believed to be an auspicious colour.
Bald cheek
A cultural product company in China was reported by Jiemian News to have offered wigs as a Lunar New Year gift to employees born in the 1990s.
Some said it was a cruel joke as the employees were losing their hair at a young age due to work pressure.
The company said that because the Chinese name for wig contains the character fa, which could mean “making a great fortune”, the gift is a blessing.
Baaaad luck
It is not uncommon to receive daily necessities such as cooking oil and rice as New Year gifts, but livestock takes things too a whole new level.
Every year during the Lunar New Year period, some people said they received live chicken, duck and even a sheep from their employer.
In ancient China there was a folk belief that killing chicken on the 27th day of the twelfth month in the Lunar calendar would bring luck for the coming year.
It was also a common among poor rural families to kill livestock they kept at home for a feast once in a year.
Without the need to kill livestock in modern Chinese families, the gift has become a burden.
“We kept our New Year’s gift as a pet. The chick even laid eggs afterwards,” said one online observer. - South China Morning Post
