The fun (and weird) prizes China’s tech companies give employees for Chinese New Year

Photo by Ding Zhou

Spring Festival – far and away the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar – is fast approaching. For Chinese companies, that means end-of-year wrap-up meetings and celebrations. And although company-wide meetings might sound like a boring prospect, employees shouldn’t have too much trouble keeping awake, as it’s common for companies to hand out bonuses, cash, and other prizes to workers as an end-of-the-year treat.

So as the year of the monkey closes in on us, what are China’s tech companies giving away for Chinese New Year? Here’s a partial list, helpfully compiled by the folks at Sina Tech and translated/summarized by us:

WeChat: iPhone 6s handsets for everyone.

The folks at Tencent’s do-everything WeChat app have had a good year, and in addition to Chinese New Year, it’s also the app’s fifth birthday. Tencent reportedly celebrated that by giving everyone on the WeChat team an iPhone 6s handsets.

Netease: Apple gear, plus awkward prizes like vibrators and blow-up dolls

Perhaps Netease gave away a Vibease?

Like many companies, Netease did a prize drawing for its year-end celebrations. The top prizes were quite cool, if typical tech company fare: iPhones, Macs, Apple Watches, PS4s. But Netease also gave out some pretty awkward low-end prizes: blow-up sex dolls for the guys, and vibrators for the ladies. Because nothing says “Happy Spring Festival!” like making your employees feel deeply, deeply uncomfortable.

JD.com: cold hard cash (and some other prizes)

JD CEO Liu Qiangdong had a good 2015. He got married to an internet celebrity back in August, and he’s reportedly soon to be a father. So JD celebrated the new year with big giveaways to employees. 50 lucky winners got RMB 20,000 (US$3,000) in cash, and 100 more got RMB 10,000 (US$1,500). The company also gave away 416 brand-new iPhone 6s handsets, 200 iPad Mini 4s, and a lot of JD.com gift cards.

The9: making it rain

Vipshop: luxury cars and vacations

Sina: cash, cars, and gadgets