{"id":1303,"date":"2018-10-02T07:23:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T23:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/2018\/10\/02\/do-you-know-these-popular-spring-festival-decorations\/"},"modified":"2024-12-21T18:36:46","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T10:36:46","slug":"do-you-know-these-popular-spring-festival-decorations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/do-you-know-these-popular-spring-festival-decorations\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Know these Popular Spring Festival Decorations?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese lanterns are used in important festivals such as the Spring Festival<\/a> (Chinese New Year to the Lantern Festival) and the Mid-Autumn Festival.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

1. Chinese Red Lanterns\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chinese lanterns are used in important festivals such as the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year to the Lantern Festival) and the Mid-Autumn Festival.<\/p>\n

During Chinese New Year it is not uncommon to see lanterns hung on trees in the streets, office buildings, and doors of houses. Hanging a red lantern in front of the door is believed to\u00a0drive off bad luck.<\/p>\n

\"decorations<\/p>\n

Image: Deviant Art<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

2. Door Couplets\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Writing couplets for Spring Festival<\/p>\n

New Year couplets\u00a0(\u5bf9\u8054 – du\u00ecli\u00e1n) are pasted on doors. On the couplets,\u00a0good wishes or statements are expressed.<\/p>\n

New Year good wishes are usually posted in pairs (i.e. couplets), as even numbers are associated with good luck and auspiciousness in Chinese culture<\/a>. Couplets are brushworks of Chinese calligraphy, in black ink on red paper.<\/p>\n

The two usually-seven-character lines of the couplet are affixed on the two sides of a doorway. Many are poems about the arrival of spring. Some are statements about what the residents want or believe in, such as harmony or prosperity. These might remain up until renewed at the next Chinese New Year.<\/p>\n

In the same vein, a four-character idiom of well wishes is often added to the crosspiece of the door frame as well.<\/p>\n

\"decorations<\/p>\n

Image: China Highlights<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

3. Paper Cuttings\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a custom to paste paper cutouts on windows during the Chinese New Year.<\/p>\n

Paper cutting is the art of cutting designs out of paper (any color, but typically red for the Spring Festival), and then gluing them to a contrasting backing or a transparent surface (e.g. a window). It is customary for people in northern and central China to\u00a0paste red paper cuttings on doors and windows.<\/p>\n

The image of an auspicious plant or animal typically provides the theme of the New Year’s paper cutting. Each animal or plant represents a different wish.<\/p>\n

For example, the peach symbolizes longevity; the pomegranate, fertility; the mandarin duck, love; the pine tree, eternal youth; the peony, honor and wealth; while a magpie perched on the branch of a plum tree presages a lucky event that will soon happen.<\/p>\n

\"decorations<\/p>\n

Image: Travel China<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

4. New Year Paintings<\/strong><\/p>\n

New Year Paintings (\u5e74\u753b – ni\u00e1nhu\u00e0) are pasted on doors and walls during the New Year for decorative purposes and as\u00a0a symbol of New Year’s greetings. Images on the paintings are auspicious legendary figures and plants.<\/p>\n

\"decorations<\/p>\n

Image: Pinterest<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

5. Upside-Down Fu Characters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Similar to New Year couplets, and sometimes as paper cuttings, is the pasting of big diamonds (squares at 45\u00b0) of paper calligraphy with the inverted Chinese character \u798f\u00a0(f\u00fa)\u00a0on or over doors.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0fu\u00a0characters are deliberately inverted.\u00a0Fu\u00a0means ‘good fortune’, and posting the character upside down means they want the ‘good fortune’ to “pour out” on them.<\/p>\n

The right side of the character was originally a pictogram for a jar. So by upturning the character implies they’re “pouring out” the jar of good fortune on those coming through the door!<\/p>\n

\"decorations<\/p>\n

Image: Imugr<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

6. Kumquat Trees\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kumquat tree<\/p>\n

In Cantonese, the kumquat is called\u00a0gam gat sue. The word\u00a0gam\u00a0(\u91d1) is the Cantonese word for ‘gold’, and the word\u00a0gat\u00a0sounds like the Cantonese word for ‘good luck’.<\/p>\n

Likewise in Mandarin, the kumquat is called\u00a0jinju shu\u00a0(\u91d1\u6854\u6811 – j\u012bnj\u00fa sh\u00f9), and the word\u00a0jin\u00a0(\u91d1) is the Chinese word for gold. The wordju\u00a0not only sounds like the Chinese word for ‘good luck’ (\u5409 j\u00ed), but also contains the Chinese character if written \u6854.<\/p>\n

Therefore, having a kumquat tree at home symbolizes a wish for both wealth and good luck. Kumquat trees are a\u00a0very popular plant\u00a0displayed during the Chinese New Year holidays, especially in South China’s Cantonese-speaking regions of Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong, and Guangxi.<\/p>\n

\"decorations<\/p>\n

Image: Pinterest<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

7. Blooming Flowers\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chinese New Year, also called Spring Festival, marks the beginning of spring. It is not uncommon to decorate houses with blooming flowers, which symbolize the coming of spring and wishes for a prosperous new year.<\/p>\n

The most popular blooming plants\u00a0traditionally used during this period are: branches of plum blossoms, orchids, peonies, and peach blossoms.<\/p>\n

Plants and flowers are extremely popular in Hong Kong and Macau as Chinese New Year Decorations.<\/p>\n

\"decorations<\/p>\n

Image: Tesselaar Flowers<\/p>\n

\n

Source: China Highlights<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese lanterns are used in important festivals such as the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year to the Lantern Festival) and the Mid-Autumn Festival. 1. Chinese Red Lanterns\u00a0 Chinese lanterns are …","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,41],"tags":[60,386,3464,353,306,29,34,3427,214],"class_list":["post-1303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pro-tips","category-china-jobs","tag-china","tag-chinese-culture","tag-do-you-know-these-popular-spring-festival-decorations","tag-e-china-cities","tag-hiredchina","tag-jobs","tag-jobs-in-china","tag-spring-festival","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25145,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions\/25145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}