Every winter, when the Lunar New Year comes around, Shuyi’s 80-person WeChat group of extended family lights up with celebratory messages and ‘red envelopes,’ digital versions of the red-packeted cash gifts that are central to the traditional Chinese holiday.
Shuyi and her relatives send each other red envelopes on WeChat, a messaging app, sometimes using a playful function where the first person to ‘snatch’ the envelope gets the digital money.
