During Chinese New Year, families in Malaysia decorate their front doors and their houses with poetic couplets of calligraphy expressing the feeling of life's renewal and the return of spring. Traditionally the couplets were handwritten but nowadays they are mostly mass produced in factories.
It is said that spring couplets originated from "peach wood charms", door gods painted on wood charms in earlier times. During the Five Dynasties (907-960), the Emperor Meng Chang inscribed an inspired couplet on a peach slat, beginning a custom which gradually evolved into today's popular custom of pasting-up spring couplets.
In addition to pasting couplets on both sides and above the main door, it is also common to hang calligraphic writing of the Chinese characters for "spring", "wealth" and blessings. Some people will even invert the drawings of "fu" or blessings since the Chinese for "inverted" is a homonym for "arrive", thus signifying that spring, wealth or blessing has A couplet is made up of two lines of verse which are called the "head" and "tail" adn which should correspond with each other phonologically and syntactically word for wrod and phrase for phrase. In the past time, children would be given this kind of test or practice.
I am told by my godmother that auspicious words handwritten on red paper is by calligraphers is more propitious than those printed mass produced ones as these masters inscribe it with auspicious blessings. The very words they write are thought to embody the idea involved, invoking a magical sense of what is desired.It is said that spring couplets originated from "peach wood charms", door gods painted on wood charms in earlier times. During the Five Dynasties (907-960), the Emperor Meng Chang inscribed an inspired couplet on a peach slat, beginning a custom which gradually evolved into today's popular custom of pasting-up spring couplets.
In addition to pasting couplets on both sides and above the main door, it is also common to hang calligraphic writing of the Chinese characters for "spring", "wealth" and blessings. Some people will even invert the drawings of "fu" or blessings since the Chinese for "inverted" is a homonym for "arrive", thus signifying that spring, wealth or blessing has A couplet is made up of two lines of verse which are called the "head" and "tail" adn which should correspond with each other phonologically and syntactically word for wrod and phrase for phrase. In the past time, children would be given this kind of test or practice.
Chinese families will post these festive couplets to their doors, not only to bless the home, but also to offer good feelings to all who enter.
Chinese people have a lot of different kinds of spring couplets. For businessman, they will have special words for earning more money, and gain good reputation around the world. For usual families, they would get some spring couplets listed good fortune, and luck. arrived.
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