Before the Lunar New Year, stores are stocked with special souvenirs and snacks that are the symbols of this bright holiday. Many months of the year have their own specialties but this time of the year is synonymous with love letters, pineapple tarts and bak kwa – barbecued pork jerky – to name a few. These Chinese New Year (CNY) delicacies also have significant cultural meanings and they represent the meaning of CNY. While CNY snacks are associated with something sweet to share with friends and family, they can also be good for business relationships as souvenirs.
The Importance of Giving Gifts in the CNY
Lunar New Year is fraught with gifting practices which are widely adopted by Chinese communities around the world. The two groups of people are expected to share token gifts as a sign of goodwill, and start the New Year, and its activities, on a prosperous note. Auspicious gifts include mandarin oranges, pineapples, cookies, nian gao, bak kwa and any other item that comes in a combined decorative hamper including all of the above items.
The exchange of the festive commodities is a way of continuing a relationship and transferring it from one year to another. Business relationships as strategic ties that are established and developed through a process. Handing out CNY goodies promotes relationships and brings goodwill messages from the distributor to the recipient. The gifts represent the sweet interpersonal relationships just as sweet and sticky are the snacks have been presented.
CNY Goodies as Corporate Gifts
Understanding and appreciating the implication involving some of the locally popular snacks/ gifts during the celebration of CNY make it appropriate to strengthen corporate relation. Giving out Christmas hampers gives a message to the employees, clients or partners that you appreciate their efforts and you want to have even a better business partnership in the coming year.
Pineapples, mandarin oranges and letters that depict love are often used given their meaning of receiving good things in future. Their brightness and taste are associated with positive expectations for the upcoming year to be successful and professionally satisfying. Another auspicious food item that is considerate during CNY is Bak kwa. The second symbol is the caramelized barbecued pork which depicts blessings, and the additional sweet treatment which your clients can still enjoy from your business. Nian gao and other delicacies also fitted the ‘correct frequency’ of giving joy and appreciation.
Allowing the giving of CNY goodies can help the company express thankfulness at the same time as promoting multicultural understanding within your workplace. These gifts are not only sweet but also symbolically meaningful because of their composition and the places from which they originate to make up a meaningful gift. Presenting a sample of differentiated and superior CNY hampers helps prove your goodwill in building genuine corporate partnership.
Trendy CNY Gift Ideas
This means that corporate gifts should also feel like of the present moment, contemporary, sleek. ‘CNY gift baskets have gone beyond standard mandarin oranges, and love letters and have included fine and specialty products.
For 2023, expect to see hampers upgraded with unique additions like:
- Make tasty additions such as black pepper, cranberry or salted egg yolk to your bak kwa.
- Favicon pineapple tarts and cookies with flavors such as oregano cheese, sea salt caramel, and passionfruit curry
- Currently artisan nian gao, made from superior quality glutinous rice flours uniformly from a single geographical region
- Attractive garnishes include roasted almonds, macaroons, chocolate drops, raisins, pine nut toffee
- Chrysanthemum green tea, goji berry, date, and longan tea blends for prosperity
- Delights such as dougnuts sprinkled with edible gold, caramel custard mooncakes, wild honey
Getting the right set of gifts during the Chinese new year can associate you corporate logo with value and sophistication. Give your business partners a reason to smile and pamper their palate at the same time with Culture & Connoisseur Hamper.
CNY goodies should be appreciated and should demonstrate the ethic of ‘respecting others’, so how should those CNY goodies be given to employees and clients?
With that understanding of why CNY snacks are perfect gifts for your corporate clients, allow me to explain to you how to go about selecting the right snacks or gift and the how and when of gifting them. Here are some best practices:
Survey cultural values and trends. Of course, there are typical gifts for Chinese New Year, but such products as bak kwa may be considered undesirable for Hindus. Find out what people in your organization and your clients would like to receive.
Make it personal. But to make the difference, propose some specialty regional snacks that your clients were accustomed to during childhood. Only send documents enclosed in premium packing materials with your company color and logo. Also enclose personal New Year greeting card to them together with a good wishes that the new year would be prosperous.
Time it right. Make sure all your festive gifts are delivered a day before the lunar new year to make a perfect statement. This gifts provide on time blessings for the holidays.
Gift up and down. Wish CNY cheer not only with other board of directors, managers and employers but with employees and assistants. Considering hampers let people know they and their worth are important to your business success.
Follow-up afterwards. Visit those who you gave your CNY gifts to. Be sure to check if they had a chance to taste all the treats and have simple friendly conversation to support the networks.
CNY goodies are good as corporate gifts provided certain procedures are followed. In itself, the perfect hamper symbolizes popular culture and sophistication and genuine politeness. This sweetness is then transferred to the receiver to feed other professional relations for a prosperous year!!
