In 1996, the scholar Shang Huipeng described wedding gifts in eastern Henan in the journal Sociological Studies. “Every family holding a wedding also has a detailed account book. It records the names of the givers and the kind and amount of the gifts, so that they can be repaid later.” The ledger, he wrote, “ensures that this savings will not be forgotten.”
Writing about gifts in Dream of the Red Chamber, the scholar Deng Yunxiang described a similar record, the lizhang (礼账). One of its purposes was “for checking when returning gifts. How much the other side sent, and how much to send when the other side has an occasion.”