Spring Festival Series Topics: \”The Origin of Pasting the Character \’Fu\’\”

The origin of the word \”福\”

Chengyu

The Spring Festival is getting closer and closer, and red money hangings and blessing characters seem to appear in front of our eyes. Today’s Spring Festival topic is about pasting the word “福”.

Every Spring Festival, flaming red characters \”福\” are posted on the doors, halls, cupboards, water tanks and other places that can be posted, decorating the Spring Festival. Festive atmosphere. The expectation of \”blessing\” is probably a common psychology among Chinese people at home and abroad, and this psychological pursuit has existed since ancient times and has been passed down for thousands of years. \”Shangshu·Hongfan\” records that \”blessing\” means \”longevity, wealth, health, good virtue, and a good death\”, that is, \”longevity, wealth, health, kindness, and a good death.\” This is what we often call the \”Five Blessings\” in the \”Five Blessings\”; among the people, people conventionally understand the \”Five Blessings\” as \”blessing, wealth, longevity, happiness, and wealth.\” The Spring Festival is the beginning of the year, and affixing the word \”福\” heralds the arrival of good fortune. This custom is recorded in \”Mengliang Lu\” written by Wu Zimu in the Song Dynasty: \”Every family of scholars and common people, no matter how big or small, sweeps the door and house to remove dust and filth.\” , clean the courtyard, change the door god, hang the bell, nail the peach charm, put up the spring sign, and worship the ancestors. \”The \”spring sign\” here is to stick the word \”福\”, which is probably the earliest written record about sticking the word \”福\”. .

In the folk, there are various legends about the origin of the word \”福\”. One theory is that it started when Jiang Taigong became a god. It is said that before Jiang Taigong assisted King Wen, he was poor and miserable. His wife did not want to live with him for many years, so she left him. Later, Jiang Shang assisted King Wu to defeat Zhou. When it was time to confer the title of god, his ugly and vulgar wife also came to ask for the title. The grandpa named her the \”poor god\”, but stipulated that she could not go to any place with the word \”福\” on it. When entering the lower realm, every family posted \”blessings\” and set off firecrackers to drive away this unwelcome \”poor god\”

There is another version, which is said to have started in the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty. After Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, he killed heroes. It is said that when he wanted to kill someone, he often used the word \”福\”. \”The word as Secret note. One time, Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to kill someone again, so the kind-hearted Empress Ma ordered the people in the city to paste the word \”福\” on their doors, which avoided a disaster. Later, people began to paste the word \”福\” on their doors at the beginning of the new year to commemorate the kind-hearted person. Queen Ma.

In fact, it is not important how the custom of pasting the word \”福\” originated; what is important is the reason why this custom has endured for thousands of years. The reason is that the red character \”福\” in the square adds to the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival, caters to people\’s psychological appeal for good luck in the Spring Festival, and expresses people\’s yearning and pursuit of the best life.

That’s all for today. What are some interesting stories about the word “福”?