To express love or to be on to a good thing

Like other holiday seasons, Spring Festival, which ended on Monday, is one of the most expensive times of the year. It is also the time when people shower relatives and friends with gifts. This is not to say that our love affair with gifts is not evident during the rest of the year.

Beijing-based China Gift Industry Research Institute estimates that we spend 800 billion yuan ($127 billion) on gifts every year. It is a lot of money, more than the GDP of some countries, such as Myanmar and Somalia, according to the 2010 statistics of the World Bank.

Chinese people give gifts on many occasions, not all of which are special. Gifts can range from something as simple as fruits to very expensive products. But Chinese avoid gifting items that could embarrass or offend the recipient. For example, they avoid giving clocks because the root of the Chinese word for clock symbolizes death and funerals.