The origin and meaning of Spring Festival couplets

Spring Festival couplets imply inheriting traditional customs, increasing festive atmosphere, exorcising evil spirits, keeping peace and praying for good luck.

Spring Festival couplets, also known as "spring stickers", "door pairs" and "couplets", are one of the red festive elements "Year Red" posted during the New Year. It depicts a beautiful image and expresses good wishes with neat, concise and exquisite words. It is a unique literary form in China and an important custom for Chinese New Year in China.

When people put up Spring Festival couplets (Spring Festival couplets, blessings, window grilles, etc. ) At their doorstep, it means that the Spring Festival officially kicked off.

Every Spring Festival, no matter in urban or rural areas, every household should take off beautiful red couplets and stick them on the doors to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, thus increasing the festive atmosphere. Another source of Spring Festival couplets is spring stickers. The ancients posted the word "Yichun" more and more at the beginning of spring, and then it gradually developed into Spring Festival couplets, expressing the good wishes of the working people in China to ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters and welcome good luck.

Legend of Spring Festival couplets.

According to legend, in Shan Hai Jing, an ancient myth in China, there is a ghost land with a mountain in the middle, a big peach tree covering 3,000 miles, and a golden rooster on the treetop. Whenever the golden rooster crows in the morning, the ghost who travels at night will rush back to the ghost domain. The Gate of Ghost Domain is located in the northeast of Peach Tree District. There are two gods standing by the door, named Shen Tu and Lei Yu.

If the ghost does something unnatural at night, Shen Tu and Lei Yu will immediately find it, catch it, tie it up with a rope made of Miscanthus and give it to the tiger. So all the ghosts in the world are afraid of Shen Tu and Lei Yu. So people carved them into peach trees and put them at their doorsteps to ward off evil spirits and prevent harm.

Later, people simply carved the names of Shen Tu and Lei Yu on the mahogany board, thinking that this could also eliminate disasters. This kind of red board was later called "Fu Tao". In the Song Dynasty, people began to write couplets on mahogany boards, one for killing evil spirits, the other for expressing good wishes, and the third for decorating the portal for beauty.

They also write couplets on red paper symbolizing happiness and auspiciousness, and stick them on both sides of doors and windows during the Spring Festival to express people's good wishes for good luck in the coming year.