送禮習俗的變遷
伟德国际1916备用网址天平學院 英語1721 李恬靜
The Change of Gift-giving Custom
Tianping College of Suzhou University of Science and Technology
English 1721, Li Tianjing
送禮行為其實是一個複雜的社會問題，人們以禮物的形式交往本身就有很豐富的社會含義，如表示友好、聯絡感情、互利互惠、擴大影響、加強合作等等，表明人的存在方式就是社會性的交往方式、共存方式。
Actually, gift-giving is a complex social issue. That people have association with each other by means of gifts contains abundant social meanings, such as friendliness, connection with one another, mutual benefit and reciprocity, expansion of influence, reinforcement of cooperation and so on, which indicates that the way of human existence is that of social contact and coexistence.
送禮并不是隻存在于中國，是存在于所有社會的一個規律，隻是中國人尤為重視。縱觀中國人的一生，大概人人都送過禮，從出生、上學、參加工作、結婚生子、喬遷、事業升遷直到去世，無一不是以送禮開始與終結。所以，“送禮”本身似乎沒有什麼可說的，本不該有什麼異議。然而，自古是禮儀之邦的中國，其“送禮”行為發展到今天，早已經成為一種市場交換行為而非自願，已經完全變了味了。
Not only does gift-giving exist in China, but also in a law of all societies, which is, especially, attached great importance to by Chinese. Throughout the whole life of the Chinese, almost each person gives gift from his birth, school attendance, work, marriage, housewarming, promotion to death, beginning and end up with gift-giving with no exception. Henceforth, gift-giving, itself, seems to have nothing to talk about and shouldn’t have any objection. However, China is a nation of etiquette since ancient times and its gift-giving has already become a kind of involuntary market exchange until nowadays and changed entirely.
在中國當前這個轉型期送禮涉及的“問題”很多。由于中國社會運轉缺乏統一的規定，權力或資源擁有者具有非常靈活的空間。一件事可以這麼辦，也可以那麼辦，靈活度很大。由此産生了中國人辦事求人、托人找關系的習俗，而送禮則成了實現這一目的的重要方式。想升官要給上級領導送禮，找工作要給老闆送禮，學生上學要給老師送禮，商人做生意要給官員送禮，病人看病要給醫生送禮，當事人打官司要給法官送禮。在中國，送禮不僅是家庭成員之間的流行傳統，也是商業往來的傳統，不過也為賄賂提供了理想的借口。誰會質疑節日的送禮呢？有人認為，中國超過八成的腐敗事件首先是從節日期間送禮開始的。
Many “problems” are involved in gift-giving during the transformation period in China nowadays. For the lack of uniform rules of social operation in China, the owners of power and resources have a very flexible space. Affairs can be handled in this way or in that way, which is fairly elastic. As a result, such a custom is created that Chinese people turn to others for coping with affairs and connections, giving gifts becoming the vital approach to it. Giving gifts to the superior is for promotion, giving gifts to the boss is for work, giving gifts to the teacher is for students’ school attendance, giving gifts to the officer is for merchants’ business, giving gifts to the doctor is for consultation of patients, giving gifts to the judge is for lawsuit of parties . In China, giving gifts is not only a popular tradition among family members, but also a convention for commercial intercourse, which, however, provides an ideal excuse for bribery. Who will query the gift-giving in festivals? It is believed that more than 80 percent of corruption in China begins with giving gifts during the festivals.
中國人所受的饋贈及給他人的各種禮品，要比世界上任何一個國家的人都多得多，也超過了喜歡送禮出了名的鄰國日本人。
The gifts Chinese receive and various gifts given to others are many more than those in any country of the world and more than those in the neighboring Japanese renowned for gift-giving.
