Instead of giving gifts and lucky money, some parents in Zhejiang Province used the recent Spring Festival holiday to give their children a lesson in financial planning, according to a local newspaper.

Parents bought blue-chip shares for their kids, according to a report from the Morning Express, a Hangzhou-based newspaper.

Xu Feng, a private entrepreneur, said that he bought his 11-year-old son 500 bank shares as New Year gift on the last trading day before Spring Festival, the report said.

Xu told the paper that bank shares were his favorites because they were more stable and promising compared with other stocks and he hoped his son could benefit from the special Spring Festival gift. Xu also hoped that his son would learn how to make money in the stock market.

Hu Yue, a female teacher from a college in Hangzhou, said that she had bought shares in tourism industry for her kid as Spring Festival gift, hoping the price of tourism shares would grow during the Spring Festival holiday because lots of families plan travelling for the holiday.

"The natural tourism resources are unique and non-renewable, so I believe that the tourism shares are great investments," Hu said.

By Li Hui