The meanings of red envelopes: Promises and lies at a Singaporean Chinese funeral

Abstract

This article begins with a puzzle. Why do red envelopes appear at Singaporean Chinese funerals? Specifically, why are payments to corpse-handlers, coffin-carriers and gravediggers wrapped in red, when the work they do is described as being ‘white through and through’? Conventionally, red is the colour of auspicious occasions, hence it is the colour of a traditional wedding dress, while white is the colour of death, of the shroud and of mourning wreaths. In this article, the author suggests that the meanings of colours might actually be more complex than previous scholarship has suggested. By following this exchange of red envelopes, paying careful attention to the shifting meanings given to red, she reveals the complex, otherwise unarticulated, nature of the relationships made visible via their transfer. She follows Keane’s suggestion that attaching meaning to material takes considerable social work in order to clarify the meanings an object in exchange should carry.