# Asian Dopers - Appropriate gifts for family with new baby

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-dopers-appropriate-gifts-for-family-with-new-baby/151899>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 31, 2003, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-dopers-appropriate-gifts-for-family-with-new-baby/151899 "2003-01-31T17:05:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-dopers-appropriate-gifts-for-family-with-new-baby/151899/1 "2003-01-31T17:05:34Z")

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One of the people in my office just had a new baby boy born yesterday. He is from Singapore (our company is Singaporean owned) and is a citizen of that country. We would like to get him a gift as a sort of congratulations, but don’t know what would be appropriate. Is there anything special we should do for him? Anything we should absolutely avoid? Keep in mind that our office has no numbers with 4 in them because it is supposedly bad luck.

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**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-dopers-appropriate-gifts-for-family-with-new-baby/151899/2 "2003-01-31T17:25:12Z")

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I just found out that he is actually Chinese, even though he is from Singapore, if that makes a difference.

Thanks.

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**Author:** ![Avumede](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/avumede/32/7235_2.png) [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-dopers-appropriate-gifts-for-family-with-new-baby/151899/3 "2003-01-31T17:32:00Z")

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Traditionally, when you see the baby for the first time, you would give him a “hong bao”, a small red envelope filled with cash.

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**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-dopers-appropriate-gifts-for-family-with-new-baby/151899/4 "2003-01-31T23:04:25Z")

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Red is good. Anything red. 🙂 You might also find that the family may prefer to wait until the nipper’s a month old, at which point they’ll throw a big boozy party.

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**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2003, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asian-dopers-appropriate-gifts-for-family-with-new-baby/151899/5 "2003-01-31T23:25:03Z")

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You can’t go wrong with cash.

If this person is traditional and you really want to go the extra mile, go to Chinatown and buy some red envelopes with shiny gold decorative lettering. Put this gift in one of the envelopes and save the rest of the envelopes for future cash gifts.

If this person is non-traditional (or trying to be more American) you can just get them what you would get anyone else.