Couplets are called couplets, commonly known as pairs, and also called door couplets and couplets. The couplets are concise and profound, and the antithesis is neat and even, which is a unique art form combining China's writing and calligraphy. During the Spring Festival, it is also called Spring Festival couplets, which are posted on one side of the door.
Legend has it that Spring Festival couplets evolved from "Fu Tao". Fu Tao is a wooden board used to draw door gods in ancient times. In the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Tang Dynasty, Fu Tao's content was gradually replaced by two antithetical auspicious poems, so a new form of couplets appeared, which evolved into the custom of posting Spring Festival couplets during the Spring Festival.
In China, in addition to posting Spring Festival couplets on the door, square red papers such as "Spring" and "Happiness" can also be posted indoors and outdoors. Some people even put the words "spring" and "blessing" upside down, indicating that "spring has arrived" or "blessing has arrived".
Types of Spring Festival couplets
There are many kinds of Spring Festival couplets, including street couplets, door-to-door couplets, short Spring Festival couplets and Da Chun couplets. Each picture of the Spring Festival couplets has a cross section and the word "fu", as well as buckets and screen stickers, doors and pillars. Generally, on the opposite side of the street gate and the opposite side of the house, "Go out to see happiness" is posted, "Look up to see happiness" is posted in the house, and "Welcome to sample" and "Mu Hong" are posted on the screen wall. The old lady loves to buy auspicious words, such as "more blessings, more children and grandchildren, a prosperous land and a prosperous future"; The old man is willing to buy a warning; Most companies posted that "business is booming all over the world, and financial resources are rolling up to three rivers". There are also "opening the market" and "everything goes well", all of which are posted on the doorpost of the firm.
Fu Tao's Fairy Tales
Legend has it that there is a big peach tree on Dushuo Mountain in the East China Sea. Its trunk twists and turns, stretching for three thousand miles, and its branches extend all the way to the death gate in the northeast. Ghosts living in caves under the gate of hell come in and out of this door every day. There are two gods under the tree: Shen Tu (pronounced as a sacred tree) and Lei Yu (pronounced as Yu Fa). Whenever these two gods find evil spirits that harm people, they will tie them up and throw them to the tiger. Since the Zhou Dynasty, on New Year's Day, people have painted the images of two gods or inscribed their names with two red wooden boards six inches long and three inches wide, and hung them on both sides of the gate or bedroom door to ward off evil spirits and pray. This is the symbol of peach.
Historical stories of couplets
The earliest couplets in China are said to have been written by Meng Changjun on the Fu Tao board in the Five Dynasties (AD 964): New Year Qing Yu, Festival number Changchun. Some people think that as early as the Southern Liang Dynasty, Liu Xiaozhuo could not dismiss from office, so he asked himself and answered himself: to celebrate the hanging behind closed doors and to lie high in Xie Gongqing. Her sister Liu Lingxian is also a talented poet. She wrote a couplet: the fallen flowers are still together, and the jungle is revived.
In the Song Dynasty, Spring Festival couplets were popularized and applied. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi's poem "January Day" depicts the scene of people posting Spring Festival couplets at that time: the old year was celebrated with firecrackers, and the spring breeze sent warmth into Tu Su; The rising sun sheds light on doors of each household, New peachwood charm is put up to replace the old.
During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, couplets carved on wooden pillars also appeared in palaces, official gates and temples, and later people called them couplets (pillars). At the same time, social life couplets and elegiac couplets began to appear.
In order to celebrate the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang issued a decree on New Year's Eve, requiring officials and scholars to post a Spring Festival couplets on their doors. This custom of turning "carving peach symbols" into posting Spring Festival couplets was promoted to the people's portal website by the official court giants overnight. Early the next morning (New Year's Day), Zhu Yuanzhang traveled incognito, strolled the streets and enjoyed the Spring Festival couplets. When he found that a butcher's family didn't post Spring Festival couplets because he had no money to buy paper, he ordered someone to get paper and ink. Now he wrote a couplet for the butcher: split the road of life and death with both hands and cut off the root of right and wrong with one knife.
The stall for writing Spring Festival couplets
Generally, the right ones are prepared after Laba. Find a good place in the street, choose a place in front of an indifferent business, say hello to that business, and write "Book Spring" and "Splash Ink" on a piece of red paper. The words "borrow paper and use words" are pasted on the doorpost of that firm. Then find an acquaintance to contact Nanzhi Store. Nanzhi Store can give him red paper, writing brush and ink on credit first, and then settle accounts and pay after he sells out and closes the stall. Put a square table where the red paper sign is posted, spread a red blanket on the table, put a pen container, put some brushes in it, put a small charcoal stove, a box for writing couplets and a small box for putting money. Put an inkstone on the charcoal stove. When preparing to write couplets, burn the charcoal fire to make the ink warm, because in cold winter, the ink is easy to freeze. Then stick the written Spring Festival couplets on the wall or outside the table, and hang a few pictures with small lines as the cover to attract buyers. Tie it tightly with a small string to prevent it from being damaged by the wind. After the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, people who bought the right ones began to come one after another.