How Technology has impacted Chinese New Year

Although Chinese New Year is an ancient celebration, the drastic digital transformation has impacted many features of this festival.

Greetings and Communications

Greetings between family members and friends are an important tradition of Chinese New Year. However, the improvement in technology has impacted the way we communicate with our loved ones. For those who are unable to reunite with their family, the greetings are usually communicated through telephones and SMSs in the past, causing the systems of many telecom service providers to crash. However, now the burden has been reduced as we can easily send our best wishes to family and friends through different instant messaging applications.

Hongbao

In the past, the red envelopes that the adults give to the children, known as Hongbao, symbolise happiness and best wishes, are now often being replaced by the digital red envelopes.

Wechat, the widely used social networking and messaging application launched by Tencent, has a function that allows users to send digital red envelopes through the application. These digital red envelopes serve as the exact same purpose and have the similar appearance as the red paper envelopes.

Food

The reunion dinner on the Chinese New Year’s Eve is an extremely important occasion for the Chinese. In the past, the preparation work for this meal might take a long time to complete. However, with the proliferation of smartphones and digital business platforms, the lavish New Year feast can now be booked through online websites or food delivery applications. Websites such as Foodline, offers 89 caterer choices with 1797 Chinese New Year Catering menus. Mobile applications such as Hungry Go Where, has an article under the What To Eat section that tells users what are the restaurants that offer home deliveries during Chinese New Year.Overall, advancements in technology have significantly impacted several traditions of Chinese New Year, mainly allowing people to have more convenient accesses and more time to spend with family and friends. Now, as the Chinese New Year approaches, consider trying out some of the tools mentioned in this post if you have yet to experience them!