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䉷 2001 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. ● Vol. 28 ● September 2001

Gift Giving in Hong Kong and the Continuum

of Social Ties

ANNAMMA JOY*

This article explores gift-giving practices using data collected through interviews

in Hong Kong. I argue that Chinese culture promotes the familial over the private

self and that the attainment of family-oriented goals represents an important mea-

sure of self-realization and self-fulﬁllment. Although each individual also has a

private or inner self (chi), it is also subject to the collective will. This idea is in

keeping with Confucian ideals that encourage the individual to focus on developing

internal moral constraints and conquering selﬁshness in the pursuit of social pro-

priety. Furthermore, the boundaries of the familial self are permeable and may

include others, such as important romantic partners and, occasionally,closefriends

who become “like family.” In family and like-family contexts, reciprocity is dis-

couraged, and there is no need to build relationships through gift giving. Our re-

search also suggests, however, that there are various gradations of intimacy in

gift relationships against the backdrop of important culturalrulessuchas reciprocity,

sentiment, and face. Using the categories provided by our participants, the gift

continuum includes “close friends,” “good friends,” “just friends”/“hi-bye friends,”

and the “romantic other.”

he ritual of gift giving occurs in all societies, but its

signiﬁcance derives from the economic and symbolic

value each culture places on the gift (Carrier 1991; Mauss

[1925] 1967; Otnes, Lowrey, and Kim 1993) The gift is

generally deﬁned as the circulation of goods to promote ties

and bonding between individuals. This process happensover

time and space, and includes three different phases: giving,

receiving, and reciprocating. Gift giving is a paradox: while

the giver reaches out to the receiver through an act of shar-

ing, s/he also places the receiver in a position of indebt-

edness (Godelier 1999). Solidarity reduces social distance

between the parties concerned, but dependency simulta-

neously increases social distance at least until the gift is

returned.

*Annamma Joy is associate professor, Department of Marketing, John

Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Can-

ada, H3G 1M8; e-mail: [email protected]. The data were col-

lected when the author was a visiting scholar at the Hong Kong University

of Science and Technology (HKUST) (1996–98). The author thanks the

marketing faculty at HKUST for their support and gratefully acknowledges

the Research Grants Council grant no. HKUST 532/95H awarded to Priya

Raghubir and Michael Hui while at HKUST. Priya Raghubir, Jennifer

Aaker, Voya Misic, Jenny Chang, Cynthia Law, and Valentina Baslyk all

contributed to the preparation of this article. Keith Tong Sai-tao helped

with the Cantonese and Mandarin phraseology. Special thanks to Domio

Zhou, Lenny Cheung, Jim Ngai, and Eva Wong who assisted in various

ways with the data collection. The author would like to especially thank

the editor, the associate editor, and the three JCR reviewers for their scin-

tillating thoughts, constructive comments, and useful suggestions. Finally,

the author would like to dedicate this article to her mother who is a con-

tinuous source of inspiration and joy in her life.

Furthermore, gifts facilitate interactions that might oth-

erwise be weakly institutionalized (Belk 1979; Cheal 1988);

they involve the ego but incorporate themes of love, caring,

and social interaction (Belk 1982). The act of giving to

others reﬂects an other- as much as a self-orientation, some-

thing Sherry (1983) refers to as maximizing the pleasure of

both recipient and donor. Since both self and other are

closely implicated in gift giving, it is reasonable to expect

that gift-giving patterns vary widely across cultures (Carrier

1991; Hyde 1983; Parry 1986). In this article, I explore the

various implications of gift giving among Hong Kong Chi-

nese, while paying special attention to the contexts in which

the cultural principles of reciprocity, sentiment, and face are

shaped by such behavior. Through such extensive cultural

analysis, I seek to provide an epistemological critique of

existing theories of the gift in both consumer literature and

anthropology.

Although Hong Kong and the rest of the People’s Re-

public of China (PRC) are similar in some respects, they

are also distinct in a number of important ways. Abbas

(1997, p. 11), in particular, points out that the term “Hong

Kong culture” is itself a novel formulation based on “tran-

sitoriness.” Thus, while it is possible to generalize about

both cultures, our discussion will focus primarily on data

gathered in Hong Kong and on its relevance to this admin-

istrative region. The Appendix provides a glossary of the

Cantonese terms used in this article.

Given the current interest in redeﬁning existing consumer

theories, which are based primarily on data gathered in the

United States, this study on gift giving in one of Asia’s most

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240 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

afﬂuent cities is both appropriate and timely because it in-

corporates research into other cultures (e.g., Arnould 1989;

Sherry and Camargo 1987). This article is divided into four

sections: In the ﬁrst section, I provide an overview of the

general literature on the gift, then I discuss gift giving in

Chinese culture. This allows me to explore the ways in

which the act of giving is linked to the Chinese concepts

of self and other. In the second section, I describe our data-

gathering methods, and then I analyze the data. Based on

the data gathered from participants in Hong Kong, I argue

in the third section that there is clearly a gift continuum in

Chinese culture that includes close friends, good friends,

and acquaintances. Romantic others may be included in gift

exchanges, especially in the initial stages. The idea of rec-

iprocity embedded in the gift, however, does not apply in

the context of the family. In the fourth section, I suggest

avenues for further research.

CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS

Models of Gift Giving: Economic, Social, and

Agapic

Three models of social exchange are central to our un-

derstanding of gift giving. The ﬁrst model is primarily ec-

onomic and uses the utilitarian motives of equivalence and

equality as the springboard for understanding social behav-

ior. Balanced and negative exchanges have more to do with

economic considerations than with social factors (Belk and

Coon 1993; Sahlins 1972). In balanced giving, social re-

lations are mostly maintained by material ﬂows from both

sides. According to Malinowksi (1922 [1978]), in the Mel-

anesian system, obligatory return can be explained through

the use of sanctions invoked by either party for severing

bonds. Negative reciprocity, however, refers to exploitative

situations in which maximizing utility at the expense of

another individual is open to all exchange partners and in

which social relations are kept to a minimum. Overall, how-

ever, the principle of give and take is the basis for all social

activity, at least in Melanesia.

The second model, encapsulated in the concept of gen-

eralized reciprocity (Belk and Coon 1993; Mauss 1967),

focuses on the symbolic value of the gift and on how giving

strengthens and maintains relationships. In his classic essay

on the gift in archaic societies, Mauss (1967) draws attention

to the hau, or the spirit of the gift, which exists at two

levels: the spirit residing in the object itself and the donor’s

spirit embedded in the object. Thus, to give something is

to give a part of yourself (inalienability of the gift) and

similarly to receive something is to receive a part of another

person’s spiritual essence (Weiner 1992). Equivalence and

equality are not sought in such relationships, and one-way

ﬂows of goods and commodities could last a long time

without causing any disturbance in the relationships.

The third model is an extension of the social exchange

model in which sacriﬁce and a deep desire to please the

other motivate gift giving. Malinowski (1978) describes this

as the “pure gift. ” In consumer literature it is called “agapic

love” (Belk and Coon 1993), for which ﬁnancial or equiv-

alence considerations are unimportant.

Chinese Conceptions of Gift

In Hong Kong and the PRC, the term “gift” refers to

exchanges of products and services that connect people

linked not by family but by the concept of reciprocity (Yan

1996; Yau, Chan, and Lau 1999). In Cantonese, the term

for gift is la´ih maht; in Mandarin, it is li wu. In both in-

stances, the preﬁx la´ih or li points to the rules of etiquette

that a moral person is expected to follow in social inter-

actions. These rules, based on gender and rank, are rituals

of greeting and visiting that promote mutual consideration

as opposed to self-gain or competition (Yang 1994, p. 225).

Maht or wu merely refers to the consumer good or the object

of exchange and designates gift only with the preﬁx la´ih or

li. La´ih maht, then, refers to gift transactions betweenfriends

and acquaintances who develop good relationships. Since

the insider/outsider dichotomy is very important in social

relationships, it takes a long time for an outsider to become

an insider (Yang 1994, p. 195). The elaborate cultural rules

for gift giving (sung-la´ih) thus emphasize the social nature

of the exchange. We will now turn to this process.

Deﬁnitions of Self and Other

In the West, an individual is generally identiﬁed as a sep-

arate entity, a decision-making unit (Markus and Kitayama

1991), while in Chinese culture an individual is inherently

connected to others and fosters relationships through reci-

procity , sentiment, and kinship networks. Although the Chi-

nese experience themselves as interdependent and willing (or

encouraged) to make sacriﬁces for maintaining communal

harmony , they nonetheless make a distinction between the

inner and the outer self. Chinese culture regards the inner self

as both an active and a reﬂective force (chi) that motivates

and guides individuals to become the architects of their social

networks. Interdependent cultures thus emphasize the web of

relationships that individuals are a part of and that they con-

tinuously build through their outer selves. But even within

interdependent cultures an element of individuality obtains

(Belk 1988; Bond 1991).

Further, in Chinese culture, the individual implies only

the physical body and an exchange of hearts or xıˆn between

two bodies completes the person or re´n. This notion of

complementarity between self and other has deep cultural

and philosophical roots: both Taoism and Confucianism rec-

ognize the interdependent self, but in the former it is com-

plemented by nature and in the latter by other human be-

ings—whether superiors, inferiors, or equals (Ames 1994;

Wei-Ming 1994). This culturally celebrated deﬁnition of the

self in relation to others (within the family) results in greater

tolerance of others, greater self-discipline, and in a constant

concern for preserving harmony with others.

Chinese culture views the inner self as a work in progress

that is not totally submerged in relationships. In this regard,

Hwang contends that “doing face work” and seeking per-

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GIFT GIVING IN HONG KONG 241

sonal networks are the most common power games in Chi-

nese society (1987, p. 945). This does not mean, however,

that maximization and exploitative relations are the norm

when building relationships in more impersonal contexts

(e.g., business), as some of the research on guanxi (utilitarian

relations) suggests. Instrumentality may arise in such con-

texts, but the spirit of the gift ensures a strong connection

between the parties involved. Individuals may gain or lose

face (mı´n) during gift transactions (Cupach and Metts 1994),

but the refusal of a gift or repayment constitutes loss of face

(mo´uh mı´n) and should be avoided. As Ho (1975) and Hsu

(1985) observe, face is more a way of meeting the expec-

tations of others than acting in accordance with one’s own

wishes. Gratitude is essential and may be extended through

generations.

METHODOLOGY

This study arose from my observations of gift giving on

a university campus in Hong Kong, where I lived and con-

ducted research from January 1996 to December 1998. Early

during my stay, I noticed that a group of students would

suddenly converge on an individual, sing “Happy Birthday,”

and then offer that person a birthday gift. This phenomenon

served as the impetus for my article. Belk, Wallendor f, and

Sherry (1989) describe such naturally occurring occasions

as “revelatory events,” because they stimulate interpretive

insights and the systematic analysis of additional data. I

returned to Hong Kong a year later during the Dragon Boat

Festival, a gift-giving occasion, and visited a second time

the following year during another gift-giving celebration,

the Mid-Autumn Festival. This time, I conducted additional

interviews with participants, thus managing to get a fairly

longitudinal perspective on gift giving.

My understanding of gift giving is based primarily on

textual data collected through in-depth interviews with 35

students (25 females and 10 males) and on limited obser-

vations of participants in their homes or university resi-

dences. Verbal reports are generally interpreted as situated,

particularistic, and motivated (Arnould and Wallendorf

1994, p. 493), providing “perspectives of action,” while par-

ticipant observation allows “perspectives in action.” Ar-

nould and Wallendorf (1994) outline the various problems

with relying extensively on verbal reports and textual anal-

ysis, both of which apply to this study. Our university sam-

ple yielded a certain homogeneity in areas, such as age,

income, and educational background. As Rucker, Freitas,

and Kangas (1996) note, students are just as likely as other

sample populations to have given and received gifts.

My assistants included a Cantonese-speaking, trained

male ethnographer who helped me collect the data. Since I

did not know Cantonese, he conducted the interviews and

made the relevant observations. Thus, we created a bi-gen-

der team, subscribing to the idea that access to different

domains of meaning is essential for an ethnographic study

(Arnould and Wallendorf 1994). Before the interview pro-

cess, my assistant and I discussed the project at length and

studied the Chinese literature on gift giving. We obtained

permission to tape all the interviews and assured interview-

ees of conﬁdentiality. Each participant was given a pseu-

donym. I met with my assistant after each interview so that

he could summarize the main themes in English while we

listened to the tape. At this stage, we each kept ﬁeld notes

and ﬁeld diaries.

I was also assisted by a professor from the language de-

partment who explained the phraseology and acted as an

external auditor, especially in the initial stages. A Cantonese

student, also trained as an ethnographer, helped with the

data analysis. Two other Cantonese graduate students acted

as external auditors. The constant discussions with my as-

sistant, external auditors, a translator, and a trained ethnog-

rapher helped to clarify the themes as they emerged. Given

the expertise of my assistants, I was conﬁdent that I was

obtaining meaningful data.

Our sampling criteria required that participants be able

and willing to volunteer at least two hours of their time for

the principal interview and at least one hour for the follow-

up. We gave the participants the option of discontinuing at

any point during the interview. All our participants were

students, between 20 and 30 years of age, who spoke Can-

tonese and some English. Most were from lower middle-

class to middle-class families. This assessment was based

on a number of factors: where they lived (the type of neigh-

borhood, housing complex, dwelling size), father’s occu-

pation (most mothers did not work outside the home), own-

ership of consumer goods, and stated amounts of

discretionary spending on clothing and goods, such as cel-

lular phones, pagers, and palm pilots. The speciﬁcity of our

sample in terms of age raised questions of validity and ge-

neralizability of the data across the population. Our rationale

for this choice was as follows: if Hong Kong stands out

from the rest of China because of its renown in the ﬁnancial

and services sector and because of the diffusion and appro-

priation of Western material culture, university students best

exemplify these changes. To obtain a general understanding

of student life, we used an open-ended format (McCracken

1988a, 1988b).

Each interview began with a general discussion of the

participant’s university life, career aspirations, and friend-

ships. This led to a discussion of gift-giving patterns and

rules. Each interview was transcribed, translated, and jointly

read to ensure a deeper understanding of the students for

the second set of interviews. Participants were more candid

in the second round, displaying things they had received or

were planning to give as gifts. Some were contacted for a

third interview in mid-1998, mostly to follow up on details

that were missing or of special interest. In the third round,

we selected certain participants to provide feedback on our

ﬁndings. In September 2000, an additional round of data

gathering was possible. In sum, the longitudinal nature of

our data-collection process allowed us to become better ac-

quainted with our participants and to address items that

either we or they had overlooked.

We used a hermeneutic process to analyze the text, mov-

ing from a discussion of the part to the whole (Joy 1991;

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242 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Thompson, Locander, and Pollio 1989), both within a spe-

ciﬁc text and within the entire body of interviews. We dis-

cussed each theme extensively before reaching a consensus,

and each theme gave us further insight into what should be

asked at the follow-up interviews, when participants would

be shown a copy of their transcript to obtain feedback and

to collect more data through the process of auto-driving (see

Belk, Sherry, and Wallendorf 1988; Belk, Wallendorf, and

Sherry 1989). Thus, we were able to generate a hermeneutic

interpretation, which, as Thompson and Tambyah (1999)

note, seeks to be open to possibilities afforded by the text,

rather than to project a predetermined system of meanings

on to the textual data. We also kept ﬁeld notes and diaries

at this stage of our data analysis. We provide a detailed

interview with a female participant to show the emergence

of the gift continuum with individuals outside the family;

a detailed interview with a male participant to discuss family

interactions; and an interview with the same male to discuss

the role of gift exchanges as his status changed from ro-

mantic other to family member.

The following narrative attempts to capture the richness

of participants’ accounts and to explicate them with theo-

retical accounts of gift giving. Implicitly we use a strategy

of defamiliarizing the assumptions in the consumerliterature

by juxtaposing cross-cultural differences and by providing

an epistemological critique (Marcus and Fischer 1986). The

defamiliarizing technique also supplies a dramatic and more

direct cultural criticism (Arnould 1989).

Finally, even in a situation in which participants are com-

fortable with the interviewer (who speaks their language

and knows their culture), Chinese people still have a ten-

dency to create an impression of social harmony and bal-

ance, and not to reveal their true inner feelings. Thus, since

their responses are for public consumption, they might be

more indicative of other- rather than ego-focused activity.

CREATING A NARRATIVE: A GIFT

RELATIONSHIPS CONTINUUM

Our discussions with participants made it clear that they

drew on a gift continuum that calibrates relationships from

the most affective to the least. It comprises major categories,

such as close friends, good friends, and just friends, which,

in turn, includes the subcategory of hi-bye friends. The ro-

mantic other also ﬁgures in the continuum, especially in the

early stages of the relationship (see Fig. 1).

Relationships between romantic partners strengthen over

time, and conversely gift exchanges diminish in importance

because the romantic other becomes a member of the family.

It is noteworthy that family purchases and family giving do

not fall into this continuum although the family continues

to be used as a model for other social relationships. Three

of the closest relationships outlined in Confucian philosophy

are those between father and son, young and old, and hus-

band and wife, and each of these may be seen as a nesting

relationship within a larger cultural whole that values hi-

erarchy, patriarchy, and ﬁlial piety (Bell 2000).

The data also raise a relevant question: To what degree

have fundamental values, such as harmony and ﬁlial piety,

prevailed in a society that has undergone rapid transfor-

mation, ﬁrst under the British and now as a special admin-

istrative region under the PRC government? Here Tobin’s

(1992) concept of “domestication” proves useful in under-

standing how Hong Kong residents have taken what is un-

familiar and new and made it their own. Tobin (1992, p. 4)

describes domestication as an active and creative cultural

process that integrates the modern with the traditional and

the exotic with the familiar. Some recent studies on the

younger generation’s attitudes toward traditional values in

contemporary Hong Kong demonstrate the validity of To-

bin’s concept. Shek’s (1998) study shows that, although the

extended family structure in Hong Kong is being replaced

by the nuclear family, its members continue to cultivate

intimate family relations even when the children leave the

nest. Zhang and Bond’s (1998) study suggests that the

younger generation in Hong Kong and Beijing still support

the tradition of providing for the material and psychological

well-being of one’s parents (e.g., observing rituals of an-

cestor worship, continuing the family line, etc.). But it is

also clear that the younger generation (like earlier genera-

tions) is ambivalent about how to uphold these traditions:

whereas once this age group would devote considerable time

to looking after their parents themselves, today theyare more

prone to spending money on placing their parents in homes

for the elderly. While these homes represent a Western bor-

rowing, they are becoming increasingly familiar and may

soon be ingrained in the culture (Woo et al. 2000). Thus,

cultural borrowing recontexualizes the new into an existing

framework.

Hong, Chiu, and King’s (1997) study is also signiﬁcant

because it argues that Hong Kong students are bicultural

and that, when primed with appropriate symbols, they be-

have in either a Chinese or a Western manner. For example,

some of our own participants were unsure about using the

term “gift” in situations of self-provisioning or even of self-

indulgence. Thus, in Hong Kong, a decision about how to

domesticate the new is not an easy one, but the expression

of such ambivalence regarding self-giving is not the focus

of this article.

Excerpts from an Interview with Sonia: Close

Friends, Good Friends, and Hi-Bye Friends

Sonia is an undergraduate student in commerce and ad-

ministration who lives with her family. She and her friends

engage in different types of gift giving. Sonia distinguishes

between close friends (ﬁrst tier), good friends (second tier),

and hi-bye friends (third tier). For intimate friends, she care-

fully selects gifts to express her affection, whereas for hi-

bye friends, she takes a more casual approach (even though

she gives them gifts on special occasions). Consider the

distinctions she makes among these three tiers of friends:

Sonia (S): I classify people according to how close I feel

towards them. For those closest to me [ﬁrst tier], I’d feel

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GIFT GIVING IN HONG KONG 243

FIGURE 1

RECIPROCITY AND THE GIFT CONTINUUM IN HONG KONG

very guilty if I forgot their birthdays. Later, if I were to

remember, I’d remedy the situation immediately with a phone

call. Then, I’d try to see them and give them a gift. This

would be my way of showing how much I cared. But if the

same thing were to happen with a person at the second or

third tier, I wouldn’t feel so bad. Second-tier friends [good

friends] are a little closer, however, than third-tier ones. These

are friends I don’t expect much from, nor they from

me—they’re hi-bye friends. But I still try to remember their

birthdays and buy them a token gift to show my respect.

Although these gifts don’t mean much to them, they still

show my concern for them.

Sonia distinguishes between ﬁrst-, second-, and third-tier

friends in both sentiment and reciprocity. She admits to

feelings of guilt and shame when she forgets her close

friends’ birthdays, but she is more concerned with express-

ing affection for them and less with losing social face. Here,

it is important to make a distinction between social face

(mo´uh mı´n) and moral face (lian) because the management

of social face may or may not involve the management of

personal integrity. Concerns about moral face, according to

King (1985), derive from feelings of shame or guilt caused

by inappropriate behavior toward an individual. For Sonia,

this concern imposed an internal moral restraint on her be-

havior toward a close friend. In the case of second- and

third-tier friends, Sonia still tries to remember their birth-

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244 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

days, but her concern with reciprocity and equivalence over-

rides her feelings of guilt or pleasure. Birthdays, likewise,

are expressive gift-giving occasions that are also more

formalized.

Interviewer (I): Can you elaborate a little on your feelings

of guilt towards your close friends?

S: Not all friends expect you to give them a birthday gift.

About a year ago, I forgot the birthday of a very good friend

who was studying in the U.S. She called me up and said she

was very sad that I had forgotten her birthday. It wasn’t that

I didn’t care about her, but that I had merely forgotten the

date. I felt so sad and guilty that I couldn’t sleep that night,

because of the pain I had caused her. I tried to think of all

the possible ways in which I could make it up to her. Even-

tually I found her a very nice gift [“the right gift,” she added],

and she forgave me.

Forgetting a close friend’s birthday caused Sonia immense

pain (loss of moral face), particularly because her friend was

overseas. Sonia’s friend, however, had violated the rule of

the active disavowal of obligation embedded in the gift be-

cause she drew attention to the oversight. But this did not

weaken the relationship. Sonia implies that connections of

the heart are more important than social infractions, because

both time and the right gift (sincere expression of intense

sentiment) erased the pain of both parties. Furthermore,

Sonia’s friend in the United States expressed sorrow but not

resentment at having been forgotten.

In Chinese culture, the heart is a powerful source of spir-

itual and personal energy. When the Chinese describe the

relationship between two people as the connection of two

hearts, this has a powerful metaphorical resonance, which

evokes cultural, medical, philosophical, and historical no-

tions of the relations between self, body, and community

(Ames 1994). The terms “heart” (sa˜m) and “spirit” (lı`hng)

are used to express this sentiment (Zito and Barlow 1994).

The relationship that Sonia has with her close friend is one

in which the gift per se is not important. Among close

friends, reciprocity is much more personal and informal, and

its effectiveness stems from the other party’s memories (see

Yau et al. 1999). Yan (1996) distinguishes between personal

gift relations with good feelings (close friends) and personal

relations without good feelings (distant friends). Gift giving

with good feelings kindles cherished memories, and for

Sonia those memories were not activated because she forgot

to buy her friend a gift. Although sentiment is crucial, Sonia

also suggests that ﬁnding the right gift is essential to restore

balance in the relationship. The rightness of the gift depends

on the relationship between the individuals and their gift-

giving history. Thus, although the relationship between the

transactors is important, the gift (invested with Sonia’s sen-

timent) also has the power to heal a breach in friendship.

As Yang (1994) observes, when gifts are reciprocated, there

is always a “little of you in me and a little of me in you”

(pp. 297–298). Hong Kong Chinese have a saying that a

caring and generous individual has a large, round face, while

a mean person has a small and narrow one. It is almost as

if the investment in the gift causes a bodily change. In other

cultures, this investment may be considered more abstractly,

such as in places where the emphasis is on labor and time

(Weiner 1992). Although this instance could have been an

occasion to lose social face among less intimate friends, it

did not happen to Sonia because of the strong relationship

with her friend.

I: Can you say a little bit more about the process of ﬁnding

the appropriate gift for close friends?

S: For close friends, I’m quite systematic about ﬁnding the

right gift. I make a list of things they need, and then I ﬁgure

out my budget. After this, I think of the best shops to target

and then go there to ﬁnd the gift. When I ﬁnd what I’m

looking for I’m always very happy. It’s almost like making

a high grade on an exam. I can imagine how my friend will

feel when she opens the gift. On the other hand, if I can’t

ﬁnd the perfect gift, then I give her a card or take her out to

dinner instead of buying a less suitable gift.

The amount of effort and care invested in ﬁnding the right

gift reﬂects the intensity of the relationship. This is similar

to what Ruth, Otnes, and Brunel (1999) call the “empathetic

gift,” one the recipient needs the most, because the giver

sees inside the recipient. The participants are concerned with

budgets, particularly since they are students, but the sys-

tematic search for ﬁnding the right gift far outweighs the

concern over equivalence. Indeed, if they cannot ﬁnd the

right gift, they seek a deferral, but in the interim they make

other social gestures, such as sending a card or taking the

friend out to dinner. According to Yau et al. (1999), a de-

ferred payment is valued, because a belated gift, always

larger than the initial one, allows individuals to savor, afﬁrm,

and strengthen existing relationships. Such accretion of

value embodied in the right gift symbolizes the growth in

sentiment between close friends. The search for the right

gift also suggests that it is wrong to treat close friends as a

means to an end because, as Godelier (1999, p. 208) notes,

proximity is symbolized by the absence of calculation. A

belated gift is also said to bring pride and good luck, but

in the meantime, token giving helps to ease the transition

process. Furthermore, the pleasure of giving, as described

by Sonia, compares with the elation of achieving a high

grade. Given that parents rank academic success second only

to ﬁlial piety (see Shek and Chan 1999), the joy of pleasing

parents through scholastic achievement is equated to the

pleasure of ﬁnding the right gift for a friend. Similarly,

anticipating the friend’s reaction to the gift is in itself a

source of anticipated pleasure for the giver. Thus, with close

friends, paying attention to the details of gift giving make

the event memorable and emotionally charged.

I: Earlier, you used the terms second- and third-tier friends.

Can you elaborate?

S: Yeah. There is a second and third layer. A friend I was

close to about two years ago is no longer that close to me.

But we’re still friends, so I try and remember to buy her a

birthday gift. She slipped from the inner core to the second

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GIFT GIVING IN HONG KONG 245

layer. But if I forget to give her a gift this year, perhaps our

friendship might deteriorate further and become more like a

third-layer friendship. The third layer is mostly composed of

acquaintances [hi-bye friends].

Here Sonia discusses the importance of observing the social

principles of reciprocity and equivalence with second- and

third-tier friends and the problems that arise when friends

slip from one tier to another because appropriate gifts are

not exchanged on the right occasion. Loss of social face is

possible. As Ho (1975) notes, social face and impression

management are important in communal relations. Ritual

occasions of gift exchanges with second- and third-level

friends serve as maintenance rites, reafﬁrming ties that tend

to weaken due to relational atrophy (Cheal 1988; Miller

1993).

S: For hi-bye friends, I won’t make such a deliberate effort

to go out and buy a suitable gift. If I’m shopping and ﬁnd

something appropriate, I might just pick it up, and when the

occasion presents itself, I’ll give it to that person. Let me

give you an example. If somebody were to have a birthday,

then people who hang out together would collectively buy

that person a gift. So you’re forced to contribute. I can’t

escape from such a situation. The person closest to the birth-

day person is usually assigned the task of choosing the gift.

Then, on the actual day, all of us gather to present the gift.

You have to reciprocate, otherwise you’ll be identiﬁed as a

“shabby person.” If my classmates gave me a birthday gift,

I’d have to buy them one in return. Of course, I’m happy to

be remembered, but sometimes it becomes difﬁcult to

reciprocate.

The term for shabby person is ho`hn syuˆn, which translates

as “miserly behavior.” Not to reciprocate on a gift occasion

would clearly be a situation for losing social face and should

be avoided. Sonia states that there is even coercion involved

in contributing to a joint gift for a third-tier friend. In Chi-

nese culture, restrictive and even coercive acts promote mu-

tual consideration in social networks (Ho 1975). Further-

more, to minimize the sense of obligation associated with

the occasion, the individual closest to the person celebrating

the birthday is asked to buy the gift. The ritual surrounding

the birthday person when the gift is given also removes

some of the obligatory nature of gift giving. It is thus im-

portant even in forced relationships to demonstrate a lack

of concern with calculation. While gifts are not normally

opened in the presence of the giver, it is common to do so

among close friends. In this instance, both giver and receiver

enjoy the process of unwrapping. However, with less inti-

mate friends, recipients may show their gifts to closefriends.

Heeding the face of others is a mechanism by which one

can prevent loss of face, while the possibility of a hi-bye

friend becoming a close friend also raises the strategic ne-

cessity of giving face to the other.

S: On one occasion, I really didn’t have the time to get a

third-tier friend a gift. I was frustrated, but I didn’t feel guilty.

Given the time and ﬁnancial constraints, I did the best I could.

I: What did you mean by “you felt frustrated but did not feel

guilty?”

S: I was frustrated, but I still made an effort. Even though

receiving a gift is not that important to me, it may be to

others. It also plays a critical part in maintaining relationships.

Phoning, paging, and sending a card are all ways by which

you can show respect. For people who are not so close, you

would like to offer a token gift in order to maintain the

relationship. So it’s really out of a sense of obligation to keep

the network going. But I’ll do the minimum to keep the

relationship going.

The occasion Sonia describes caused frustration, but not

guilt (reserved for close friends), because any equivalent

gift would be appropriate to face the other person. Since a

countergift—token acts—would sustain the relationship,

timing was critical. Between third-tier friends, showing re-

spect is also more important than showing emotions. Cal-

culation is present, but individuals try to downplay it. Over-

all, preventing loss of social face ismore critical than gaining

face in these instances. Yan (1996) suggests that Chinese

culture emphasizes networks of relationships, so that insid-

ers are not compelled to feel guilty about outsiders in these

situations.

I: Can you elaborate on this sense of obligation you feel?

S: Sure. I live in a society. I know that one day I’ll need my

friend’s help or maybe I might even get close to this person.

So if I like them initially, I’ll try to keep the relationship

going. I still want to show them my respect. The gift, however

small it is, is still a way of facing somebody. On the other

hand, with your close friends you don’t worry about whether

they’ll be helpful to you now or in the future. I don’t want

just any kind of help from my close friends, such as ﬁnancial

help, for instance. But I may need comfort when I’m unhappy

or when I face challenges. I want their understanding more

than any other form of help.

Acting in relation to one’s social situation is important to

Sonia, for, as a member of a society, she must act in ac-

cordance with the social norms of reciprocity. The possi-

bility of requiring help from a friend or of intimacy with

that person in the future motivates Sonia to invest in the

relationship. Sustaining the relationship is an act of main-

tenance, but using this as a mechanism to ensure a stronger

future relationship causes Sonia to be more aware of oblig-

atory giving. Here an element of instrumentality obtains,

but it is tempered by the sentiment associated with gift giv-

ing. Yang (1994) and Yan (1996) mention the importance

that people place on increasing their guanxi. To Sonia the

importance of the gift lies in its power as a vehicle to face

somebody. Here Ho’s (1975) notion of sociality is crucial

to understanding the role of the gift, for even a token gift

recognizes the other as an equal partner in the exchange.

Thus, gaining or losing face is not a private act of self-

evaluation but an evaluation granted by the other. One can-

not just claim face; one has to be granted face. Consequently,

a person must always be vigilant and attentive to the face

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246 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

of others because face considerations are often mutually

restrictive and sometimes coercive in the achievement of

social harmony.

With a close friend, however, face work is not so crucial,

and ﬁnancial equivalence is not sought in gift giving. What

the Chinese value is the friendship itself and the support

they receive in times of crisis. The gift may be anything,

small or large and should not affect the relationship, which

is regarded as solid. Yet even here, an expensive gift either

communicates the feelings of the giver, exceeds an earlier

gift, or reﬂects the closeness of the relationship between

giver and receiver.

Excerpts from an Interview with Justin: Giving to

the Romantic Other, and Family Relationships

Justin is a third-year student at the university who lives

with his parents. Like Sonia, he makes distinctions between

close friends, just friends, and acquaintances. Many partic-

ipants, including Justin, used the phrase “gift comes and gift

returns” (laih seuhng wohng loih) to describe a society-wide

norm for what Yau et al. (1999, p. 1030) refer to as bao or

reciprocity. He discussed exchanging gifts with his girl-

friend:

Justin (J): Giving gifts to my girlfriend is important because

it is a way of telling her that I’ll take care of her and that I

want to make her happy. There are two things here—caring

for her and concern for her happiness. This is particularly

important in the initial stages.

I: What did you give her in the early stages of your

relationship?

J: I tried to buy her things she wanted. Later, she told me

that she was impressed, because I was spending time and

money to buy her things [spontaneous little gifts as well as

larger gifts for her birthday, and so on] that she liked. At

ﬁrst, I bought her dolls and ﬂowers, now I buy her unusual

jewelry.

I: What kind of unusual jewelry did you give her?

J: Most girls love gold jewelry, and it is now becoming more

commonplace to give such gifts. When I bought her a chain

with a carved eagle pendant, she was so thrilled. Although

expensive, it was unique. It was only then that she realized

that I really loved her.

Justin emphasizes that thoughtful gifts, both small and large,

enrich their relationship because they are tangible reminders

of its development. Creating and strengthening positive

memories of their good times is for him a way of building

a foundation for their future together. Justin’s girlfriend saw

the gift of jewelry as an act of sacriﬁce that led to a turning

point in their relationship (see also Ruth et al. 1999). It was

almost as if he had intuited her desires, and from that time

on, Justin had become more like family.

I: Can you tell me more about what happens in the context

of your family?

J: I buy a lot of things for my parents and sisters. They also

give me things they know I like. We do not refer to these

things as gifts, but they are ways of showing that we’re close.

I: What kinds of things do you buy?

J: Chocolates, for instance, that everybody can share. I know

that I don’t have to buy things to demonstrate that I love

them, but I do it, because I know that my parents and sisters

like certain kinds of chocolates, and so on. But when I’m

older and settled, I’ll take care of my family.

I: Can you expand on this?

J: When my parents are older and feeble, I’ll consider buying

gadgets to simplify their lives. My mother, for instance,

bought a wheelchair for my grandfather because he had dif-

ﬁculty walking. This was not an act of obligation, but some-

thing she wanted to do. You can see that she loves to do

such things.

I: Can you tell me more about the distinction you make

between obligation and willingness?

J: Sure, what I mean is that not only do I have the respon-

sibility for taking care of my parents but also the desire to

make them happy. When I was little, they took care of me

and my sisters. So when they’re old, looking after them will

be my way of showing I love them.

Justin’s family, like the families of other participants, does

not formally exchange gifts but exhibits a constant give and

take on an intimate level. Although Western holidays have

penetrated into the economy and the media, the commer-

cialization of family feelings is discouraged on such occa-

sions. Giving chocolates to family members is one way of

giving and receiving pleasure in a family context, but it does

not constitute an expression of deep feelings. Like other

participants, Justin discusses the importance of showing par-

ents that their children love and care about them, especially

in old age. Justin’s own mother had set the example for

ﬁlial love when she purchased the wheelchair for his grand-

father, an act Justin describes as one of love, and not of

obligation. He recognizes that his parents’ gift of life is

unconditional (enqing), and can never be reciprocated, only

replicated with his own offspring.

Family and Enqing Relations

Among Cantonese speakers, the term enqing describes

feelings of intimacy between family members. Parents give

children enqing for life, and their children in turn are in-

debted to them for life. Enqing can neither be repaid nor

exchanged, but is passed on from one generation to the next

and maintained through rituals celebrating ancestors. Any

attempt to interpret ﬁlial piety as a gift exchange or a display

of instrumentality is rejected outright. In this regard, Doug-

las and Isherwood (1978), Godelier (1999), and Weiner

(1992) discuss objects that cannot be given to others because

they belong to the realm of the sacred. Godelier (1999) states

that “no society or identity can survive over time andprovide

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GIFT GIVING IN HONG KONG 247

a foundation for the individuals or groups that make up a

society if there are no ﬁxed points, realities that areexempted

from the exchange of gifts or from trade” (p. 8). Hong Kong

Chinese regard family relationships as such a reality: they

are inviolable and lifelong, and reciprocal gift giving would

violate the sanctity of this principle. Parry’s (1986) study

on giving in the Indian caste system (dana) demonstrates

that asymmetrical giving also characterizes Indian culture

and fulﬁlls a similar function: one-way gift ﬂows from mem-

bers of the higher caste to members of the lower caste main-

tain and reinforce the hierarchical social order. Thus, the

patterns of asymmetrical giving in India, as in Hong Kong,

challenge the universality of reciprocity in gift exchanges

across cultures.

The emphasis on enqing also emerges in the physical

layout of the household, which typically reﬂects a lack of

privacy and individuality. Homes are very small, and the

majority of the population, including families with four or

ﬁve members, lives in cramped two- or three-room apart-

ments (Siu 1999). The family may include grandparentsand,

periodically, other extended family members. Because of

such close living arrangements, the individual learns to view

the world as a network of relationships (Hsu 1985). Many

interviewees noted that they did not have separate bedrooms

and therefore could not lock themselves in a room to listen

to music or to read a book. The only space that they could

claim as their own was a bed on which they placed personal

items, such as books and stuffed animals. Individuals, how-

ever, learn to have private moments, even when they are

surrounded by family members; for example, they may use

the bathroom for private phone calls, a good cry, or even

meditation. Space and possessions are not totally individ-

ualized, and the family may jointly own cassette players and

CDs, but given the afﬂuence of Hong Kong, many young

people own their own CD players, cellular phones, and other

electronic items. Despite family injunctions against privacy

and the ownership of goods, the younger generation does

rebel against the collective will of the family and occasion-

ally violates these rules. But their attempts to redeﬁne them-

selves by acquiring goods that emphasize self-reliance and

individuality occurs through domestication (Tobin 1992)

Participants noted that, in most instances, family members

do not exchange gifts, although families (as a unit) may

enter into gift relationships with other families, especially

during festivals such as Chinese New Year. Gift giving does

not occur within the family, because love and sacriﬁce take

precedence over reciprocity. In this regard, Yang (1994)

mentions feelings of intimacy that are experienced only in

the context of the family and sometimes in family-like re-

lations (yiqi). This is evidenced by Cantonese phrases that

express affection only for family and like-family members:

ngo´h ge ga˜ya`hn literally means “my family” but may also

be extended to include very close friends and romantic oth-

ers; nguˆhke´i-ya`hn, which literally means love between sib-

lings and respect for elders, may apply to all family mem-

bers; and haauseuhn, an expression of ﬁlial piety, may also

apply to all elders. However, family disputes may be re-

solved through consumer goods, but they do not have a

price tag. Gifts for family members, as our participants

noted, are practical and functional in nature, which de-em-

phasizes their special status. This contrasts with what Cheal

(1996) suggests occurs in the West, where the emphasis in

family giving is on nonpractical and nonutilitarian goods,

since basic needs are met in routine and impersonal ways.

Chinese culture regards parents as superior to children in

both gift-giving roles: as givers and receivers. As a result,

when parents receive gifts from their adult offspring at for-

mal or informal occasions, they do not have to reciprocate

them. Parents are also considered superior when they give

red packets of money to their unmarried children at Lunar

New Year. Similarly, when the children marry and start their

own families, they expect similar expressions of ﬁlial piety

from their own offspring, so the hierarchy is maintained

from generation to generation. The mother of one of our

interviewees had made this very clear when she said, “Your

body and life belong to me. You can never repay me for

this.” This statement both reveals a fundamental resistance

to changing a core value and emphasizes the engendered

and embodied nature of the ultimate gift—the gift of life.

The giver in this instance is superior to the receiver. In

enqing relationships, blood ties and the sharing of meta-

phorical bodily substances are both sanctiﬁed and institu-

tionalized (Bond 1991).

More recently, the introduction of Western holidays, in

particular Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, has created some

ambivalence about gift giving in families. Although gift

giving is used to express ﬁlial piety, it also allows givers

to exercise their autonomy because the act of choosing a

gift places them on the same level as their parents. As some

participants noted, this creates a double bind. On the one

hand, parents want their children to give them gifts on

Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, so as not to lose face among

their friends, but, on the other hand, they frown on the act

itself because it disrupts the parent-child hierarchy. In Con-

fucian thought, the child can never equal the parent, re-

gardless of the type of gift given, and any attempt to do so

would generate serious conﬂict. But the media’s inﬂuence

is so pervasive that parents often discuss with their friends

the gifts they received from their children on these special

occasions. The drive to save social face has imbued the gift

with extraordinary social implications for the family, for it

now has much more signiﬁcance than when it was just a

token. It is as if one parent were to tell another “mydaughter/

son bought this for me because s/he cares about me” and

then to pause to allow the friend to draw the correct infer-

ence. In an extreme case, one participant said that she would

be “dead meat” (se´i la) if she forgot a gift-giving day. Such

a violent metaphor is surprising, but the participant noted

that her parents would be upset if they lost face among their

friends. As the respondent noted, her mother did not artic-

ulate such a thought directly but “mumbled under her

breath,” thereby conveying displeasure at her daughter’s

thoughtlessness in such ritual situations. In sum, the incur-

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248 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

sion of Western holidays into Chinese life has altered the

nature of gift giving in the family.

Parents may ask their children to purchase items for them,

but these are not viewed as gifts. According to one partic-

ipant, the term wu´ih bou ye´uhngyukh-ji-ya˜n literally trans-

lates as “the feelings that one has for parents to recognize

the grace of (having been brought up by them).” In other

words, children will do anything for their parents to make

them happy. But there are also instances in which children

have to be reminded to do what they are expected to do for

their parents.

The following excerpts from interviews clarify and further

explore some of the issues raised above. The ﬁrst one il-

lustrates the ways in which young people are socialized to

behave in intergenerational interactions. The second offers

a glimpse into a situation in which intergenerationalconﬂicts

may occur. The third, with a male informant, suggests that

in some instances parents have to be vigilant about rein-

forcing the idea of parental care. The fourth excerpt, also

with a male, suggests that in the context of the extended

family losing face might be a serious problem.

Marina: At Chinese New Year, only parents give us

gifts—red packets with money in them. You never give your

parents gifts. When I have my own family, I’ll be expected

to show them (and other seniors) respect through gifts. We

don’t use the word “gift” because we’re already a family,

and we don’t worry about whether it’s a gift or not.

Kathy: When I bring things home, my mother will often say,

“Why did you buy these useless things?” At that moment

I’ll act like a spoiled child and retort, “Okay, I won’t buy

you anything any more!” But when I have a family, I’m sure

I’ll react in a more Wester n fashion. I’ll accept the gift and

not say it’s useless.

Patrick: We seldom buy gifts in our family. My mother would

say, “You should not give me any gifts on my birthday. It

is a waste of money. You can give me more money when

you ﬁnd a job and settle down.”

David: One time, when my father came home from a trip,

he brought a Swatch watch that he had promised my ﬁrst

cousin, but I liked the watch and asked him for it. This caused

a problem, because my uncle had lost face when his son was

not given the Swatch watch. Since then, our families have

not been too close.

Marina’s conﬁdent and spontaneous assertion that what

you give should not be described as a gift because the re-

cipient is family highlights the importance of examining

what Sherry (1996) calls a biocultural basis for gift giving.

Care-giving rituals prevail in family contexts and shape an

individual’s understanding of gift giving. For Kathy down-

playing the notion of the gift, as her mother did, would

perpetuate the accepted norm of the interdependent self.

Kathy, like others of her generation, feels that she has a

different lifestyle and should have more freedom, much

along the lines of what Hong, Chu, and King (1997) imply.

Zhang and Bond’s (1998) suggestion that the extreme

requirements of ﬁlial piety may inhibit an individual’s in-

dependence and eliminate personal desire and interest is

worth noting. In this context, then, it is not surprising that

some of our participants were torn between feeling modern

and observing more traditional behavior. Patrick’s obser-

vation that his mother explicitly told him to give her more

money when he found a job is an unusual request because

it is direct and evokes the fear that children may not always

be able to look after their aging parents. Finally, David’s

story about how his uncle’s loss of face caused a family rift

suggests that withdrawing a promised object has repercus-

sions despite the injunction against gift giving in the family.

Relationships with a Romantic Other

In love relationships, the instrumental nature of gift giving

is downplayed from the start and, therefore, the term “token

gift” or sui la´ih maht is preferred to the word “gift.” In the

early stages of a relationship, men are expected to take the

lead and give several small gifts. As the relationship pro-

gresses, however, women not only tend to give more gifts

(planned and unplanned) than men but more substantialones

as well. When the couple begins to discuss commitment and

marriage, the nature of giving changes again: Gifts become

more personal and are linked to the recipient’s speciﬁc

needs. Finally, when the relationship becomes very close,

giving—even on ritual occasions—becomes unnecessary.

Consider what some of the participants had to say on this

issue. In the following excerpts, Michael talks about the

problems of giving standard gifts, like chocolates, in the

early stages of the relationship, an act that may or may not

evoke feelings of excitement and warmth. Jacki is quite

graphic about her gift-giving practices. The idea of losing

social face is also apparent in Mary’s use of the phrase “you

get termite,” which simply means that a person will be so-

cially sanctioned by friends and relatives for not acting ap-

propriately. Finally, Alison describes what happens when a

lover becomes part of the family.

Michael: When I started dating my girlfriend, I decided to

give her a box of chocolates and take her out on Valentine’s

Day. It was a rather moderate gift. She opened the box and

said, “Oh . . . chocolate!” She didn’t appear too excited and

put it aside.

Jacki: For my boyfriend’s birthday, I’ll take him out to lunch

or dinner. If this relationship gets better, then I’ll buy him a

nicer gift, like a squash racket. If I feel that our relationship

is going nowhere, then I won’t give him any more gifts!

Mary: On days like Valentine’s Day, when all your friends

get ﬂowers and you don’t, your boyfriend loses face. You

“get termite” as they say. You’re angry that your friends will

think your relationship is not good or that you’ve broken up,

etc. So there is some pressure to conform.

Alison: I’ve been going out with my boyfriend for almost

two years now, and we’re very close. He’s becoming more

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GIFT GIVING IN HONG KONG 249

like family than just a very intimate friend. Now we don’t

give each other gifts because there’s no need to.

The term “token gift” captures the transition from outsider

to insider status because the romantic other, or prospective

groom, will receive token gifts to reﬂect his ambiguous

status in the family: small, spontaneous gifts and more sub-

stantial ones on special occasions like birthdays. When the

relationship strengthens, the sentiment attached to these ob-

jects becomes very important and is expressed in a phrase

like lihng keuih hoisam, which means something like “to

cheer him [or her] up” or “to please him [or her].” Ulti-

mately, when the romantic other becomes a member of the

family, gift giving in this formal sense ceases. Spontaneous

giving and sharing are encouraged because the romantic

other has become a member of the core group. Thus, my

study, which indicates that gift-giving patterns among lovers

in Hong Kong resemble Western ones, supports Yan’s ob-

servation (1996) that most studies on non-Western societies

downplay the importance of emotion. According to Yan,

there are two reasons for this: ﬁrst, anthropologists tend to

exoticize the other; second, studies on gift giving in the

West focus on the pure gift, creating the impression that

questions such as who, what, and when are irrelevant. Cal-

culation and sentiment ﬁgure equally and prominently in

both Western and Chinese giving.

Yihhei and Gift Giving (Close Friends/First T ier)

Yihhei feelings refer to intimate relationships between

close or ﬁrst-tier friends. Sometimes intimate friends be-

come like family and are therefore treated accordingly:

There is no obligation to give them appropriate gifts on

ritual occasions or to observe the other rules of social pro-

priety. This clearly contrasts with similar situations in the

West, where obligation and sentiment are invoked through

gift giving (Carrier 1993; Cheal 1988).

Yang’s (1994) previously quoted statement that part of

the individual is transferred to the recipient and vice versa

also applies to ﬁrst-tier friends. Over time the “me-in-you”

is balanced by the “you-in-me,” but as Yan (1996) notes,

this sense of having to repay is unequivocally overpowered

by the emphasis on affect. When buying gifts for their close

friends, participants spoke freely about the time invested in

choosing the right gifts and of the joy of wrapping them

and of watching their friends open them. One of the par-

ticipants stated that she always kept her close friends in

mind when she went shopping just in case she found the

“right thing,” even if she was not looking for it. While these

gifts imply intimacy, the suggestion of obligation persists,

as we shall see in the excerpts below. In one instance, Jessy

discusses the ability to see inside her friend and the oppor-

tunity she had to buy her the ideal gift. Jessy’s comments

bring to mind the Chinese expression “everybody wants to

be at the center” (ya`hnya`hndo˜use´ung sı`hng waih jungsa˜m),

which reinforces the importance of the ties that bind people.

In another instance, in which close friends are discussed in

the same context as extended family members, Theresa com-

ments on the importance of giving her aunts gifts. Consider

the following excerpts in which respondents describe their

gift exchanges with close friends and extended family mem-

bers:

Jessy: I have a very close friend whom I have known for 10

years. I bought her a dress for her birthday—it was the perfect

gift! I knew her tastes so well, and in this instance I knew

her size as well. It was the ideal gift, because she had tried

it on and loved it.

Joey: You need friends, right? A gift is one way of saying

“I remember and care about you.” This will make them happy.

Vincent: For relatives, such as cousins, I give only birthday

cards, which they may see as an inferior gift, because they

can easily throw it away. I think they prefer an object, because

it lasts longer than a card.

Theresa: If I forget to give one of my aunts a gift, this will

be talked about in the extended family. So then my mother

will have to settle the matter. She’ll have to say something

like, “Oh, she’s sai-gu,” or too young to know, so please

forgive her.

In this instance, Theresa’s mother will have to do damage

control for her daughter’s socially inappropriate gift behav-

ior. If an individual does not show an extended family mem-

ber affection by offering a gift, he or she is described as

mo´uh ga˜gaau (“not from a good family”) or ngo´h sıˆk ya`hn-

chı`hng-sai-gu (“one who does not understand the social

norms of balance and harmony”). However, if people are

too young to understand the intricacies of reciprocity, the

term sai-gu may be used to describe their behavior. This

simply means that the individual is too young to understand

the rules of propriety and social graces and should therefore

be excused.

In each of the above excerpts, the idea of using the family

as a model for behavior is apparent. The joy of giving and

receiving is emphasized (except by Vincent and Theresa)

over the amounts spent on the gift. However, in the last two

cases, which involve extended family members, giving is

obligatory. Yan (1996) refers to this as giving without good

feelings. In general, the amount of time spent on searching

for the right gift not only makes the receiver happy but also

pleases the giver, who imagines the process of receiving

prior to the giving. Also, with close friends, a deferral is

acceptable as long as the event is recognized with a token

gesture. In fact, as Yau et al. (1999) observe, the extra time

taken to ﬁnd the right gift helps the giver to savor the re-

lationship and to enjoy every moment of the process. The

principle of generalized reciprocity is nevertheless observed

when an expensive gift is offered in return, but the focus

is not on the obligation. Instead, the giver is motivated by

a desire to cherish and afﬁrm the relationship (see also Ruth

et al. 1999). The gift touches both giver and receiver very

deeply at many levels, because the gift embodies and builds

on past memories.

Although yihhei feelings are valued by most participants,

calculation sometimes takes precedence over affection. In

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250 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

one of the interviews, Lisa indicates that in purchasing gifts

for close friends, she is sometimes motivated to buy what

she likes rather than what her friends like. She also admits

that price is an important consideration and clearly identiﬁes

the beneﬁts of making a speciﬁc purchase (“accumulation

of points toward my next purchase”). She also adds that she

experiences no guilt because her friend will have to feign

good feelings when she receives the gift.

Re´nqı´ng and Gift Giving (Good Friends/Second

T ier)

Re´nqı´ng refers to the emotional bond between good or

second-tier friends. In the exchange of gifts, a giving and

taking of personal essence occurs (Yang 1994), as in a yihhei

relationship. But the obligation to repay and not be in-

debted—without the receiver losing face at your ex-

pense—prevails. Here the reference to saving face points to

social rather than to moral face. Jenny, one of the partici-

pants, noted that “the gift has to be acceptable but you can

take it easy when you buy gifts for good friends.” Most

often gifts to good friends are given on birthdays, and the

amounts spent are generally less than on gifts for close

friends. Ada, another participant, mentioned that cash was

never given as a gift. Consider the following statements from

additional respondents:

May: Sometimes, you get ideas as to what to get your friend

for her birthday through the hints she drops. She might say

that something is getting popular and that she would also

like to have one. And this way we at least know that she

wouldn’t dislike it. Price is an issue, because I still have to

rely on my parents for money, but I can’t buy a cheap gift.

Buying something for less than 50 [Hong Kong] dollars is

cheap, but over a hundred dollars is acceptable for university

students.

Stephen: A birthday is more special, more personal. . . .

Spending time together eating/drinking or karaoke would be

ﬁne.

Sylvia: For good friends, you cannot really give a small gift.

It is better to give a large gift, because the recipient will be

happy when she unwraps it in front of everybody.

Sonia: I did buy a clock for a friend, but in Chinese culture

clocks are never given as gifts because they are associated

with death. But before I gave the gift, I asked her for a small

amount of money, so that it appeared as if she had bought

it for herself.

In re´nqı´ng contexts, despite the urge to please, ritual, rec-

iprocity, and equivalence are sought. Concern over price

surfaces, because offering a cheap gift causes one to lose

social face. However, offering an expensive gift also places

pressure on the receiver to reciprocate. Although individuals

may drop hints as to what they would like to receive, they

must be discrete, as must the person buying the gift. Oth-

erwise, both giver and receiver risk violating the rules of

surprise, mystery, and premeditation, for both pretend that

they do not attach any importance to the price of the gift.

The giver often experiences relief after buying the gift, be-

cause it is so difﬁcult to ﬁnd the right gift. Again, loss of

face may be averted by carefully selecting the gift. But even

among good friends, a distinction may be made between

close and not so close friends. In both instances, afﬁrming

that one cares and wants to maintain the friendship is still

at the root of such giving, although the type of gift chosen

may vary.

When buying gifts for re´nqı´ng friends, our participants

followed these guidelines: size matters, so buy a large gift,

because people will witness its unwrapping (Sylvia); do not

buy gifts associated with death, although one participant did

give a clock to a friend (Sonia); do not give money except

under certain circumstances, such as Lunar New Year (Ada);

do take a friend out to dinner to express your affection, even

on a personal occasion such as a birthday (Stephen). The

goal is to buy an appropriate gift for your re´nqı´ng friend:

your gift must please her, but it must also suit the occasion.

In sum, calculation takes precedence over sentiment.

When reciprocity is not observed, some good friends may

turn nasty. Emily, another participant, described one such

occasion: a good friend had taken offense because she had

spent 100 more Hong Kong dollars on Emily’s gift than

Emily had on hers. Here comparison and calculation formed

the basis of the giving, but there are mechanisms in place

to discourage such behavior, for example, proverbs and say-

ings. In Hong Kong an individual who always compares

and calculates gifts given and received is called a “woman

with small eyes.” Re´nqı´ng friends may be more calculating

than close friends, but they cannot express their disapproval

of a gift based on price alone.

Guanxi and Gift Giving (Hi-Bye Friends/Just

Friends/Third T ier)

More explicitly instrumental, guanxi has a tactical di-

mension, although degrees of affect and notions of loyalty,

duty, and trust are also involved. Guanxi relations develop,

by deﬁnition, between potential friends; hence a certain

amount of etiquette and propriety of conduct are necessary.

Gains and losses are calculated, and the balance has to be

maintained. Giving and losing face is crucial to this

relationship.

Participants referred to guanxi friends as just friends or

hi-bye friends, that is, reasonably good friends whose com-

pany they enjoy but also seek because of the potential for

developing networks of relationships. Strong emotional at-

tachments are rarely formed in such instances, although one

always shows respect to others. Joint gifts and calling or

paging friends on their birthday are mechanisms by which

such a relationship can be maintained. Having a meal to-

gether is often a useful way of getting to know people better

and to increase one’s guanxi without too much expense.

Consider what Clara had to say:

Clara: Although we’ve been in the program together for three

years, we rarely discuss personal matters. However, we re-

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GIFT GIVING IN HONG KONG 251

member birthdays. We collect money for birthday gifts, and

the person who knows the individual [birthday girl or boy]

volunteers to buy the gift.

Further, what you give the other person in a material sense

is balanced by your moral advantage. You keep score to

ensure that it is a win-win situation, for face is not only a

matter of prestige, but also an emblem of personal and social

identity (Yang 1994). Thus the exchange of personal essence

occurs in guanxi as it does in other gift relationships, but

the “me-in-you” and the “you-in-me” is constantly under

surveillance. If the relationship is good, a temporary short-

coming in the donor will be tolerated because donor and

receiver want to maintain the relationship. Such augmen-

tation and reduction of face occur particularly in guanxi

relations, but even here an attempt is made to go beyond

material obligation and face work (Yan 1996). The following

excerpts elaborate these issues further:

Lydia: I personally think that I should not stand out from

the rest when I contribute to a joint gift. If I suggest an

expensive item, and they are used to buying reasonably cheap

items, they may misunderstand me. On the other hand, if

they want to buy an expensive gift, and I don’t want to

contribute much, they’ll think I’m shabby. So it’s a delicate

balance!

Linda: I would contribute to a joint gift because I don’t want

my friends to think ill of me. I care about how they see me,

and I also want to give them face. There are two sets of

relationships that have to be nurtured here: the one with your

friend who is asking you to contribute (which is important),

and the one with the person to whom you are giving a gift.

Vincent: If I have given him a gift for his birthday, and he

remembers mine but fails to give me one in return, I’ll start

to wonder about it. It is a feeling that if I have shown him

respect why does he not feel the same way about me?

Joint gifts are one way of giving individuals the respect they

deserve if one wants to maintain or build a relationship with

them. But even here rituals must be observed to remove the

commercial edge; for example, the person who knows the

individual best volunteers to buy the gift. If one suggests

an expensive item, it could be misconstrued as an attempt

either to dictate the choice of gift or to exceed the amount

of money that should be spent. The opposite might also

occur if the group wants to buy an expensive gift and one

individual does not wish to. This causes unnecessary friction

and the loss of face between the individual who refuses to

contribute to an expensive joint gift and the person who

volunteers to buy the gift, as well as between intermediary

and receiver. Refusing to contribute would also constitute a

loss of face because it would be an admission of being

unable and unwilling to pay. Relationships between indi-

viduals and groups thus expand and contract depending on

the emotion and sentiment involved. Any social context has

the potential for developing guanxi networks, and guanxi

relationships may likewise develop into more intimate

relationships.

The principle of indebtedness acts as a safeguard against

abuse. Implicit in the act of accepting a gift is an agreement

in trust to repay in-kind at a later date. The timeliness of

the gift and occasionally its rarity may also act as a mech-

anism to ensure this sense of reciprocity.

In Chinese society, the distinction between insiders and

outsiders is critical. It is important to be an insider at many

levels of interactions because people deal with you differ-

ently based on their knowledge of you. Access to things,

services, and people is barred if you are an outsider. Some

transformation is essential in order to move from outsider

to insider, and this is where gift giving plays an important

role. As many respondents noted, hi-bye friendships have

the potential to become more intimate by means of a timely

gift. One respondent described it as “adding a hat” (layering

the relationship) to a consumer good to make it a gift. This

category of friendship thus enhances the links between giver

and recipient. According to the participants, acting appro-

priately in line with one’s social position is important, be-

cause this way one avoids losing face. Nonetheless, it is

also clear that the line between obligatory giving, ﬂattery,

gifts, and bribery blurs on occasions when calculation is

prominent in people’s minds.

CONCLUSIONS

This study emphasizes the importance of redeﬁning our

understanding of gift giving through data gathered in Hong

Kong. Such a cross-cultural approach, recommended by

many consumer researchers (Deshpande 1999), provides an

epistemological critique of existing theories of gift behavior.

The few available studies (see Aaker and Maheswaran1997;

Applebaum and Jordt 1996; Arnould 1989; Sherry and Ca-

margo 1987; Thompson and Tambyah 1999) in this genre

serve as exemplars for demonstrating how existing theories

can be revised based on data gathered further aﬁeld. All

these studies, regardless of their approach, make a persua-

sive case for viewing cultures as linguistic-, location-, and

time-speciﬁc systems of shared meaning, thus resisting the

reduction of cultural features into universally or taxonom-

ically consistent categories (Holt 1999). I extended this ap-

proach by demonstrating that gift giving in Hong Kong is

embedded in particular sociocultural circumstances and

practices. Overall, I argue that the term “gift” applies only

to consumption activities/objects within certain contextsthat

involve an exchange between two or more individuals. The

family is a sacred sphere and therefore falls outside of the

realm of reciprocity. Further, the cultural principles of rec-

iprocity, sentiment, and face serve to guide gift relations.

The Gift Continuum

My ﬁndings clearly demonstrate the existence of a gift

continuum in Hong Kong that consists of a social scale of

friendships—from most to least intimate—that determines

and guides gift exchanges. Gifts thus involve the circulation

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252 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

of goods in the service of ties. Central to yihhei, or the most

intimate of these relationships, is the concept of sharing and

of mutual support: the parties concerned are morally obli-

gated to give, receive, and give in return. The refusal to

share (i.e., to offer an immediate countergift) is tantamount

to creating social distance. In yihhei relationships, instru-

mentality plays a minimal role, even if price is a factor,

because the desire to please the other is paramount. Partic-

ipants emphasized the importance of buying the right gift,

one that evokes the past (e.g., prior gift exchanges and cher-

ished day-to-day interactions) and that reﬂects both the na-

ture of the occasion and the strength of the relationship.

Yihhei friends may offer a token gift either to give them-

selves more time to ﬁnd the right gift or to prevent loss of

moral face when they have forgotten a friend’s birthday. A

belated gift should ideally be something the recipient needs

the most, for it must demonstrate that the giver understands

the heart of the receiver. A belated gift, which is always

larger than an immediate countergift, is said to bring pride

and good luck (Yau et al. 1999), which contrasts with what

happens in the West where it may cause tension.

There exists a gift-giving paradigm for close friends in

Hong Kong. First, social relationships take priority over

price considerations: acknowledging a close friend on a rit-

ual occasion, such as a birthday, is an act that builds intimate

relationships. Second, the gift chosen is determined by spe-

ciﬁc cultural criteria, such as ﬁnding the right gift, one the

friend truly desires. Third, goods are endowed with special

value because the right gift is jointly created and evaluated

by the participants in the exchange. Close friends actively

remember and share in the knowledge of a common past,

so gifts serve as visible markers of intimate social relation-

ships (Douglas and Isherwood 1978, pp. 75–76).

Obligation and reciprocity are central to re´nqı´ng rela-

tionships, but sentiment, sharing, and mutual support over-

ride purely utilitarian motives. Forgetting a friend’s birthday,

however, or not reciprocating an act of kindness, may un-

dermine an existing relationship and cause loss of social

face. In exchanging gifts, good friends attempt to maintain

equivalence, but their priority is to please the friend. Price

is of concern to them because an inexpensive gift would

cause both receiver and giver to lose face. However, if they

gave a larger gift than they themselves had received, this

would put too much pressure on the receiver and would be

considered improper. Face considerations are signiﬁcant

here, because the goal is to preserve rather than destroy the

relationship. While re´nqı´ng bonds are weaker than yihhei

ones, good friends strive to maintain cordial relationships,

so they must select a gift from a calibrated scale that ac-

curately reﬂects the nature of their relationship

Guanxi ties are the most instrumental of gift exchanges,

although even here guanxi friends emphasize sentiment over

mercantile logic to minimize the loss of face for both giver

and receiver. In these relationships, propriety and etiquette

prevail, emotional bonds are often minimal, and showing

respect is key. The giver avoids losing face, especially in

weak relationships, by evoking shared memories (through

an intermediary’s guanxi networks). Guanxi relationships

depend on the creation of obligation and indebtedness

among gift-exchange partners. The distinction between in-

sider and outsider is therefore important, because access to

goods, services, and people is often closed to outsiders. Gift

giving facilitates the movement from outsider to insider

status. Overall, Chinese giving celebrates the remembrances

of gifts past and provides the springboard for countergifts

(Yang 1994; Yau et al. 1999).

According to Yang (1994, pp. 199–201), the whole point

of a gift relationship (except with close friends) is to even-

tually balance social relationships, show sentiment, and

maintain face. The giver has a moral right to the face of the

other, who can now be subjected to his or her will. Yang

describes this process as adding a personal essence to the

gift, which helps construct relational subjects by detaching

a personal substance from the giver and attaching it to the

receiver. One could also argue, however, that sharing always

precedes the act of giving and that the spirit of the giver,

rather than essence attached to the object, is critical in Chi-

nese culture (Yan 1996; Yau et al. 1999). Either way giving

requires an interaction with another individual. In the words

of Douglas and Isherwood (1978, p. 89), consumption is

about power, but power is held and exercised in different

ways.

The romantic other has an ambivalent status in gift-giving

contexts because of the probability that he or she will be-

come a member of the family. In the initial stages, gift

exchanges are crucial, but with growing intimacy, the person

becomes like family and eventually the gift giving ceases.

Thus romantic others receive token gifts that mark their

ambiguous or in-transition status. The focus on sentiment

in gift exchanges between romantic others is as important

as understanding the transformation from outsider to insider.

As Yan (1996) notes, the Chinese are just as affectionate

and sentimental in their giving behavior as their Western

counterparts.

Toward an Epistemological Critique

Gift giving presents a dilemma because it is both an act

of generosity and an act of enslavement (Godelier 1999).

On the one hand, participants in gift exchanges enter a shar-

ing relationship; on the other hand, receivers become de-

pendent and even subject to the control of the giver (and

hence are inferior in many cultures) until the gift is returned.

According to Mauss (1967), gift exchanges occur because

the hau, or spirit of the gift, which resides in the gift, and

the spirit of the giver, which is transferred to the gift, compel

the receiver to reciprocate. Mauss also states that there are

two spheres of wealth: the commercial sphere in which

goods are exchangeable and the sacred sphere in which

exchange is not encouraged. In Hong Kong, the family is

sacred and exempt from the reciprocal exchange of gifts.

Further, the interdependent, familial self prevails in Hong

Kong. Since very close friends and romantic others may be

included in the familial self, the norms of reciprocity, in

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GIFT GIVING IN HONG KONG 253

some instances, may not apply to them either. Because ﬁlial

piety is enshrined in family relationships, children are for-

ever indebted to their parents who gave them the ultimate

gift—the gift of life. Children express ﬁlial piety by, among

other things, observing parental birthdays and ancestral rit-

uals; whatever gifts are offered on these occasions are prac-

tical. Similarly, when Chinese parents celebrate their chil-

dren’s achievements, they treat them chieﬂy as family rather

than as individual accomplishments. Anything that under-

mines the harmony and interdependence of the family is

discouraged. Actions of a moral nature that focus on the

inner self are encouraged among family members, although

maintaining social face as a family unit in the rest of society

is also emphasized.

If the time-honored principle of asymmetry is the glue

that binds the Chinese family together, we begin to appre-

ciate the intense desire to maintain such ethics of enqing,

especially in the parental generation. While the family re-

mains the core of society, it is not celebrated through rit-

ualized gift exchanges. The sanctity of the family is instead

honored on a daily basis, through acts of ﬁlial piety that

cherish interdependence and through acts of solidarity that

distinguish the basic unit from the rest of society. In Go-

delier’s terms, the family is outside the sphere of reciprocity.

In the West, in contrast, it is the vulnerability of family

life that is responsible for the large amounts of gift giving,

especially at Christmas (Cheal 1988). The gift becomes the

perfect vehicle for displaying love, gratitude, and friendship,

but the ideology of the pure gift (which emphasizes the

spontaneous expression of love between the parties con-

cerned) obscures the fact that even here gifts are calibrated

according to the nature of the relationship with the gift

partner—whether the gift partner is a wife, child, or nephew.

The exaggerated focus on sentiment obscures the cultural

rules at play in the West. For instance, if a child received

a smaller gift than a nephew, there would be some concern

about the nature of the relationship between giver and re-

ceiver. There is an implicit social distance scale in relation

to the given donor that is often subsumed under the term

“emotional value.” As Caplow (1982, p. 1321) observes,

“In the dialect of Christmas gift giving, the absence of a

gift is also a lexical sign, signifying either the absence of

a close relationship, as in the Christmas contact of cousins,

or the desire to terminate a relationship, as when a husband

gives no gift to his wife.” Excessive generosity and care

embedded in the pure gift are seemingly more ideal than

real, although they serve as an alternative to the mechanized

and rationalized egoistic forces that surround us (Belk 1996,

p. 78). As one moves beyond the circle of the family and

kin, the nature of giving changes as well. Carrier (1993, p.

58) suggests that reciprocation is insigniﬁcant and that there

is a certain amount of disengagement from the relationships

involved.

My ﬁndings also challenge the universal notion of reci-

procity embedded in the gift (Malinowski 1978). This view

has since been criticized because of its undue emphasis on

dyadic transactions between self-interested individuals (Parry

1986). Parry’s study of gift giving in India suggests that

asymmetrical giving maintains a hierarchical social order be-

cause there the givers (higher castes) are superior. In Hong

Kong and the PRC, one-way gift ﬂows occur when parents

give red packets of money to children at Lunar New Year.

Although they are not expected to return the gifts, the children

offer their parents food and money when they themselves

marry. Like the higher castes in India, Chinese parents are

always superior regardless of whether they give gifts to or

receive them from their married children.

Token Giving

In his studies on the Kula, Malinowski (1978) underscores

the importance of maintaining social relationships through

the protracted process of exchanging valuable necklaces for

highly regarded arm shells. Here the protocol of sociality

is embedded in the token gift (Weiner 1992). Our research

also provides meaningful data on how token giving sustains

relationships at all levels of the gift continuum in Hong

Kong. The ambivalence toward gift giving among romantic

couples generally reﬂects their transitional status from

strangers to family members. The term sui la´ih maht (token

gift) illustrates the general reluctance to call such giving a

gift. It involves time and labor on the donor’s part and is a

way of gradually incorporating the receiver into the group.

The same also holds true for very good friends who are

considered like family, for often a phone call or a token gift

sufﬁces to show one’s appreciation until the right gift is

found. Sometimes, eating together is regarded as a token

gift that afﬁrms the like-family status of the friend because,

in family contexts, food exchanges are often the medium

through which love is expressed. In close friendships, sen-

timent and caring far outweigh equivalence and equality. In

the case of good friends, just friends, and hi-bye friends,

token giving is also important because it serves to give face

to others or to develop guanxi ties. Souvenirs and ﬂowers

(which participants refer to as easy or typical gifts) are often

used to show respect. Token giving serves as a memory cue

and afﬁrms the reciprocal nature of the relationship between

giver and receiver.

Limitations and Future Directions

Generalizations are difﬁcult due to the problems associ-

ated with sampling young middle-class to lower-middle-

class university students (perhaps more Westernized than

the rest of the population). If Zhang and Bond’s (1998)

studies of ﬁlial piety and social harmony among university

students in Hong Kong testify to the resilience and conti-

nuity of traditional Chinese values, how HongKong students

appropriate and recontextualize the foreign and the unfa-

miliar requires greater elaboration. A case could be made

that the resistance to social change is more acutely felt and

better articulated by the older generations—the parents and

grandparents of the students interviewed. They often lament

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254 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

that their offspring, raised under British rule, have aban-

doned cherished cultural values in their race to accept the

new. Clearly, we need to examine generational differences

in gift-giving patterns and to pay greater attention to the

domestication of the new.

Further, although we had male and female participants,

we need to further explore gender distinctions and changing

gender roles in both the care of family members and the

development of romantic relationships. Women have in-

creasingly sought career opportunities outside the home, and

they now contribute to the family income. In these new

contexts, are males still pressured to manage the ﬁnances

of their aging parents and of their younger siblings? Are

women pressured to be nurturers or are they also expected

to assume ﬁnancial obligations? Women are often caregiv-

ers, although in the absence of male siblings they act as

caretakers as well. But both men and women become gift

givers as they age, even though they were gift recipients as

children. And ﬁnally, if men are expected to take the ini-

tiative for developing romantic relationships, how does this

affect gift exchanges over the long term?

According to Mick (1996), Mick and De Moss (1990),

and Sherry (1996), the self-gift is prevalent in North Amer-

ica, but is self-giving in Hong Kong more common than

our data suggests? The issue of self-giving, which might

have a negative impact on family values and solidarity, sur-

faced in our discussions with participants who made a dis-

tinction between self-purchases and self-giving. This topic

warrants further exploration, and Ahuvia and Wong’s (1998)

study provides new directions for further research on self-

giving.

This study also raises the question of the generalizability

of our research ﬁndings to Chinese populations in various

parts of the world, such as Taiwan, mainland China, and the

West. What are the similarities and differences among these

different groups? Johnson’s (1974) study of Japanese gift

giving in Honolulu suggests that second generation Japanese

are closer to the U.S. model than is generally assumed. To

what extent does the domestication and acceptance of the

modern alter the traditional values of the diaspora?

On a ﬁnal note, despite our improved understanding of

how Hong Kong Chinese give and receive gifts, there are

still many unanswered questions. For instance, money may

be offered as a gift in Hong Kong, and thus has both al-

ienable and inalienable qualities. But in no society is there

a pure gift or a pure commodity. Since commodities can be

converted into gifts, what are the repercussions when gifts

are converted into commodities? No doubt, in Hong Kong

the red packaging helps to remove the commercial taint

(money as commodity) of giving money as a gift and to

convert the money to the status of a gift. Examining the gift

patterns of young unmarried students does not yield sufﬁ-

cient insight into the complexities of converting commod-

ities into gifts and vice versa in daily life. Such a topic

requires further exploration as it exceeds the scope of this

study.

APPENDIX

GLOSSARY OF CANTONESE TERMS

English Cantonese

Reﬂective force (inner self) Chı´

Gift La´ih maht

Ritual La´ih

Act of giving Sung-la´ih

Self Xıˆn

Person Re´n

Relationship (instrumental) Guanxi

Face Min

Losing social face/losing

moral face

Mo´uh Mı´n/lian

Heart Sa˜m

Spirit Lı`hng

Miserly behavior Ho`hn syuˆn

Gift comes, gift returns La´ih seuhng wo´hng

lo`ih

Reciprocity Bao

Intimacy in family Enqing

My family Ngo´h ge ga˜ya`hn

Love for siblings/respect

for elders

Nguˆhke´i-ya`hn

All elders in family Haauseuhn

Family like relations Yiqi

Dead meat Se´i la

To recognize the grace of

parental care

Wu´ih bou ye´uhngyukh-

ji-ya˜n

Token gift Sui la´ih maht

To cheer him/her up Lihng ke´uih ho˜isa˜m

Close friendships Yihhei

Everybody wants to be at

the center

Ya`hn ya`hn do˜u se´ung

sı`hng wa`ih Juˆngsa˜m

Make them happy Deui Ke´uih ho´u

Too young to understand

reciprocity

Sai-gu

Not from a good family Mo´uh ga˜gaau

One who does not under-

stand social norms

Ngo´h sıˆk ya`hn-chı`hng-

sai-gu

Benevolence (good

friends)

Re´nqı´ng

[Received November 1999. Revised January 2001. David

Glen Mick served as editor, and Eric J. Arnould served

as associate editor for this article.]

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