🧧 Red Envelope

🧧 Red Envelope is one of the celebrations in Unicode's Activities group. Typical contexts are envelope, gift, good and hóngbāo. Unicode also files it under lai, luck, money and red, which shows how widely it is read.

🧧 fits messaging apps, social networks and anywhere a short visual cue helps. On SmileyZone it is filed under Party and Celebration. It joined the standard with Emoji 11.0 in 2018, so support on current devices is reliable. Its code point is U+1F9E7.

• 🧧 on its own already flags the topic: envelope.
• Fits messages about envelope, gift, good and hóngbāo.
• Often seen near 🎑 Moon Viewing Ceremony, 🎐 Wind Chime and 🎀 Ribbon.

The red envelope – hongbao in China, sebaetdon in Korea, otoshidama in Japan – holds money and is given at New Year, weddings and births. Red means luck and wards off misfortune; the envelope matters more than the sum, because handing over money openly is considered rude.

There are rules: the amount should avoid the number four, since the Chinese word for “four” sounds close to “death”. Eight, by contrast, brings luck. Since WeChat introduced digital envelopes, hundreds of millions of people send them by phone at Spring Festival.

• 🧧🎍 – Red Envelope and Pine Decoration
• 🧧🎑 – Red Envelope with Moon Viewing Ceremony
• 🧧🎐 – Red Envelope plus Wind Chime
• 🧧🎟️ – Red Envelope and Admission Tickets
• 🧧🎋 – Red Envelope with Tanabata Tree
• 🧧🎀 – Red Envelope plus Ribbon
• 🧧🎊 – Red Envelope and Confetti Ball
• 🧧🎫 – Red Envelope with Ticket

Easy to mix up with 🎑 Moon Viewing Ceremony, 🎐 Wind Chime or 🎀 Ribbon. They sit in the same Unicode subgroup and look similar at small sizes, so it is worth checking the name before sending.