Wedding Gift

This weekend James and I are going to his coworker's wedding. This will be a first for James. It should be interesting to see a Chinese wedding, and to see how James fares in polite company.

We found out - through James' other coworkers - that wedding gift-giving is quite different here. Serving bowls and blenders are not the thing. There's no registry, people just give money.

But how much to give? I don't want to be cheap, but I had to pay school tuition this month, and the plumber is resealing my bathroom floor as I type...

James' friends said we should give something above $2000NT ($60 U.S.). However, the number must be divisible by three and it can't have any fours in it, because four means death in Chinese culture. A lot of people give $3600 because that's a lucky number.

We'll probably give $2100 or $2700, but certainly not $2400.

EDIT: Since I originally posted this blog, I was told by my Chinese teacher not to give 2700 because it has a 7 in it (odds are unlucky) even though 2700 is an even number. She said to save myself 100 and give 2600 because it's all even and "6" has a nice soothing sound ("liu"). James' mother and Chinese teacher said since we don't know them that well, 2200 is appropriate. Ageh.