From Social Reciprocity to Play: A Sociological Reading of Qiming Liu’s Red Envelope

History, politics, and public issues are threads running throughout Qiming Liu’s art. If his earlier works were more often projections of history and politics upon his individual psyche, then beginning with Red Envelope, the emphasis shifts away from private feeling. Liu begins to explore the internet and public space from his position as an artist.

As early as 2014, when WeChat’s red envelopes had just been introduced, he sensitively grasped the difference between their nature as a game and the logic of renqing—personal bonds, favors, and reciprocal obligations—embodied by traditional red envelopes. He also recognized the internet culture concealed within the WeChat red envelope.

Red envelopes are indispensable to Chinese festivals and ceremonies. From weddings to housewarmings, birthdays to New Year, they celebrate and bear witness to major, symbolically charged transitions in life. They resemble Western gifts in some respects, but the renqing, relationships, and “face”—social standing—wrapped inside a Chinese red envelope belong to a culture difficult for Westerners to understand.

A Chinese red envelope is both like a gift and like a bonus. Like a gift, it carries good wishes and expectations; unlike a gift, it is not individualized or exclusive to one person. Like a bonus, it contains actual money, yet receiving it does not bring the same delight as a bonus, because we know we are only its temporary custodians. The renqing, relationships, and face behind it dilute the satisfaction and security of having cash in hand.

Renqing, relationships, and face encompass everything in Chinese life. If we have an ideal, it is deep bonds of goodwill and reciprocity, a broad network of relationships, and great social standing. An important nutrient sustaining this ideal is the red envelope.

Every banquet eventually ends, yet red envelopes never cease to circulate. They lubricate emotional bonds among friends and relatives, enliven ceremonies such as weddings and housewarmings, and serve as instruments for exchanging benefits. They contain not only cash but also the ethical order of Confucian culture, the reciprocity of commercial culture, and the hierarchical order of power’s discipline. Red envelopes create, sustain, and strengthen Chinese interpersonal relationships.

The “electronic red envelopes” introduced by WeChat, Alibaba, and others over the past two years are changing the definition of traditional red envelopes. In 2014, Liu made Red Envelope. On WeChat’s red-envelope platform, he shared one yuan among one hundred people, producing interesting interactions and effects with these participants. The work overturns the renqing, face, and relationships of the traditional envelope. It cannot earn the giver greater reciprocal favors or enhance his standing, since each envelope contains only one fen. A one-fen red envelope certainly cannot establish any relationship of material interest.

The “one-fen electronic red envelope” uses the simplest means to reveal the cultural characteristics of the internet: sharing, interaction, equality, and play. At the same time, the artist prompts us to reconsider the structure of renqing, relationships, and face constructed by traditional red envelopes.

Liu’s Red Envelope touches the essence of red-envelope culture. The one-fen electronic envelope inherits its traditional social function without the burden of social indebtedness, an expected return, or a short-term utilitarian purpose. It is simply heartfelt emotional expression and a voluntary gift. Givers and receivers have no hierarchy of age or status; their positions and power approach equality within the red-envelope game.

If traditional red envelopes revolve around renqing, face, and relationships, the primary principle of electronic envelopes is fun and enjoyment. Their most important difference is this: one is a responsibility, the other a game. Compared with the symbolic meanings and exchange value borne by traditional red envelopes, the electronic envelope resembles a game. In the internet age, the red envelope changes from an instrument of duty, social reciprocity, and exchange into a relaxed, egalitarian game of collective celebration.

Liu’s Red Envelope may seem unremarkable today. Yet two years ago, when WeChat’s red envelopes had just appeared, he was already able to perceive how they overturned and deconstructed traditional culture, amplifying the playful characteristics of internet culture within his work. This is the sharpness, sensitivity, and agility required of an artist attentive to public issues.