Should the word \”福\” on the door be pasted upside down or facing up? Many people posted it wrong

During the Spring Festival, the word \”福\” is pasted upside down: where you can pour it and where you can\’t pour it, it actually has a lot to do with it! You can paste the word \”福\” upside down, but you can\’t paste it randomly. If you paste it in the wrong place, it will make a big joke!

Chinese people celebrate the New Year with an obvious external feature, that is, every household posts Spring Festival couplets. Spring couplets depict beautiful images and express good wishes with neatly contrasting, concise and exquisite words. They are a unique literary form in China and an important custom of the Chinese people during the New Year. In addition to adding to the festive atmosphere, the red Spring Festival couplets also express the Chinese working people\’s best wishes to ward off evil spirits, eliminate disasters, and welcome good fortune.

The folk custom of pasting Spring Festival couplets began in the Song Dynasty and became popular in the Ming Dynasty. The earliest Spring Festival couplets recorded in historical records are \”New Year\’s greetings for Yuqing, Jia Festival\’s name Changchun\”, which were written by Meng Chang, the king of Shu in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. (\”History of the Song Dynasty·Shu Family\” records: Meng Chang, the Lord of Later Shu, ordered the scholar Xin Yinxun to inscribe a mahogany board. Since he was not a craftsman, he wrote in a self-titled pen: \”New Year\’s celebrations are celebrated, and the festival is called Changchun.\”)

What matches the Spring Festival couplets is the \”goal god\”. The door god, the god who guards the door, is a type of painting posted on the door during the Lunar New Year. According to traditional customs, on the eve of the Spring Festival, every household gets busy writing couplets and door gods to pray for blessings in the coming year.

Modern people’s understanding of door gods mostly comes from the renderings in novels such as \”Journey to the West\” and \”Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties\”. The story in \”The Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties\” is as follows: Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin, killed countless people during his career as an emperor. After he ascended the throne, his health was extremely poor. At night,He had restless sleep and nightmares, so the generals and ministers gave him an idea, asking Marshal Qin Qiong and General Wei Chigong to guard the palace gates every night, wearing armor and armed with weapons. With Marshal Qin and General Yuchi guarding each other, Li Shimin could indeed sleep peacefully. However, keeping the two men vigil every day was not a long-term solution, so Li Shimin asked the palace painter to paint the portraits of the two generals in military uniforms, with angry eyes and maces in hand, and hung them on both sides of the palace gate. From then on, the evil worship disappeared. The paths of Qin Qiong and Yuchi Jingde to godhood in \”Journey to the West\” are similar to those in \”Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties\”, except that the person who seeks their lives is replaced by the Dragon King of Jinghe River.

In fact, the worship of door gods in China dates back to the Tang Dynasty. According to historical records, the activity of \”door worship\” had already appeared in the Zhou Dynasty, and It is an extremely important ceremony. Among the legends of door gods, the legends of Shen Tu and Yu Lei have long been circulated among the people. There are records in classics such as \”The Classic of Mountains and Seas\”, \”Customs and Customs\”, \”Zhongxiu Weishu Collection\”, \”The Complete Collection of Searching Gods for the Origin and Origin of Three Religions\”.

So, in the Spring Festival customs, the door god comes first, then the Spring Festival couplets. The door god is a type of New Year picture, so it all appears in the form of images. Those who can be selected as door gods are all household names (gods).

For example, after the Sui and Tang Dynasties, a variety of newly added door gods replaced pre-Qin door gods such as Shen Tu and Yu Lei. The meaning, form and content of door gods changed with the continuation of history. a series of changes. The newly added door gods in the later period mainly include \”praying type\”, \”taoist type\”, \”civilian type\”, \”martial type\”.General categories\” and \”other miscellaneous categories\” and so on. In addition to Qin Qiong and Yuchi Gong mentioned above, the blessing categories include blessing Tianguan, the Taoist category such as Zhong Kui and Wang Lingguan, and the civil servant categories Wei Zheng, Bao Gong and Wen Tianxiang Wait, they are all highly popular traffic door gods.

The arrival of the new era has gone through a period of changing customs and breaking things. In the new revolutionary period, door gods were also classified as feudal and were eliminated. After that, there were handwritten words called \”door gods\”. The text mostly expressed positive themes of the times. After the reform and opening up, some people simply used a word \”door god\”. The single word \”福\” has replaced the multi-character literary door gods and become the new favorite in the world of door gods.

It is indispensable for every household to post the word \”福\” during the Spring Festival. The meaning of the word \”福\” is \”blessing\” and \”luck\”. The word \”福\” expresses people\’s yearning for a happy life and their wishes for a better future.

In fact, posting the word \”福\” during the Spring Festival is not a new thing. It dates back to Ming Dynasty. There was a similar operation in ancient times. It is said that after Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, once secured his power, he wanted to use the word \”福\” as a secret to prepare for \”killing people and eliminating harm\” – he put a word \”福\” on the door of his people\’s houses to avoid death. Gold medal; otherwise, kill them all! In order to eliminate this disaster, the kind-hearted Queen Ma decided that everyone in the city must put a word \”福\” on their doors before dawn.

Of course no one dared to disobey Queen Ma, so every door had the word \”福\” posted on it. One family among them was illiterate and put the word \”福\” on it. The word \”福\” is pasted upside down.On the next day, the emperor sent someone to go to the street and found that every family had pasted the stickers with the character \”福\”, and one family had the character \”福\” upside down. The emperor was furious after hearing the report, and immediately ordered the imperial guards to kill the entire family. Empress Ma realized what happened and told Zhu Yuanzhang, \”that family knew you are coming today, so had purposely turned the label with the label \”福\” upside down. Doesn\’t that mean \”luck arrives\”?\” As soon as the emperor heard that it made sense, he ordered his release. Man, a catastrophe has finally been eliminated. From then on, people began to paste the character \”福\” upside down, firstly to seek good luck, and secondly to commemorate Queen Ma.

In recent years, regardless of whether the country is north or south, it has become popular to paste the word \”Fu\” upside down during the Spring Festival. In traditional Chinese folk customs, there is indeed a saying of pasting the word \”福\” upside down, which is a homophonic pronunciation of \”upside down\” and \”arrive\”, which means \”blessing has arrived\”. The word \”福\” can be pasted upside down, but it cannot be pasted casually. Pasting it in the wrong place will make a joke. In Chinese folk customs, there are three main places where the word \”福\” can be pasted upside down——

The first place: water tanks and trash cans. Because the contents of water tanks and trash cans need to be poured out from inside. In order to avoid throwing away the blessings in the family, they put the word \”福\” on them.

The second place: the cabinet in the house. Acabinet is a place where things are stored. Pasting the word \”福\” upside down means that blessing (also wealth) will always come to your home, house and cabinet.

The third place: the barn. For example, the word \”福\” is posted upside down on the doors of cowsheds and pigpens.

If you want to paste the word \”福\” on the door of your home, it must be posted squarely. The door is the entrance and exit of a home, a solemn and respectful place. The word \”Fu\” posted on it must be dignified and generous, so it should be posted squarely, and it always should be posted squarely. The word \”福\” on the door has the meaning of \”welcoming blessing\”, \”receiving blessing\”, \”going out to see blessing\”, and \”blessing comes into the home\”. If the character \”福\” is pasted upside down on the door, it is considered unlucky. \”If it\’s all knocked down, how can \”Fu\” enter the house?

(Pictures from the Internet)