Even if you are not ethnically Chinese or understand the mandarin language, you are bound to have seen this around the country.
It is the Chinese letter for prosperity, Fu 福. When it is not CNY, you may have stumbled upon it in restaurants, shophouses, even some of your friend's houses. In this article, let's dive into the different decorations put up during CNY and their meanings behind it.
- Upside down “Fu”
We've seen the prosperity word above, but have you seen it turned upside down? This is a fairly common practice among Chinese as it represents the arrival of prosperity. In mandarin, the words for 倒; dào; 'upside-down' and 到; dào; 'to arrive' are homophonous. They both sound the same. Hence, having it upside down is simply a wordplay.
2. Chun Lian 春联
These are known as Spring Festival Couplets. Almost every Chinese household will have some form of Chun Lian pasted around or on their doorframe. This involves a piece of paper or cloth typically bright red in color with a few black or gold words on it. The contents are usually auspicious phrases that wishes good health or wealth. They usually include themes such as family unity, positive aspirations, flourishing business, and well-being. There are basically 3 parts to Chun Lian, illustrated below:
The top horizontal piece known as Heng Pi, summarises the left and right phrases and and usually much more concise. The right sided is usually the first part of the couplet, and the left sided one second. Depending on how the Heng Pi is read, the left and right sided couplet might sometimes switch in positions.
3. Chinese Lanterns
This is also an almost ubiquitous decoration in every Chinese households. If you want to know if the family of a house is Chinese, just look for 2 or more giant red lanterns hanging in their porch. Paper Chinese lanterns date way back to the Eastern Han dynasty when the frames were created using bamboo, wood or wheat-straw, stretching silk or paper over it to allow for a hot air balloon effect.
In modern day China and all over the world, lanterns are now used to represent prosperity, luck and wealth. The red variant is the most popular during CNY and is used to ward off bad luck.
So now you know! This way we are able to much better appreciate the various decorations which brings color to this annual celebration. To all who celebrate: Gong Xi Fa Cai!
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