Thursday, October 27, 2011

How to use 福(fú)to decorate your house 贴福字的讲究

In Chinese tradition, people will clean their house thoroughly and use 福 and Spring Festival couplets decorate their front door one or two days before the Spring Festival.  What is the proper way to decorate the front door with 福? There are some people who decorate their front door with a upside down 福. Because in Chinese the character "倒 (dào)” (means upside down)and another character “到(dào)” (means arrive, come) have the same sound. So they think an upside down 福 means the 福 is coming to their house. That's not right ! The front door is the main entrance of the family. The decoration should not be casual but solemn. So the correct way of decorating front door with 福 is an upright 福. Like this:


And this is not the right way:


Then where should we use the upside down 福?  If you want to decorate the furniture in the house, you may use upside down 福. It means the happiness and good luck already arrived in your house and will stay with you in this coming new year.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Better your understanding of 福(f ú) 福字含义浅议


 福(f ú) is a typical auspicious character for Chinese people. It has lots of wonderful meaning. The most important meaning of it is happiness and good luck. 
Chinese calligraphy is a lovely art. We write the same character in different style in different situation or to express different emotion. This is the Standard style (楷书 kǎi shū)of  福:


This is the Running style (行书 xíng shū) of  福:


And this is the Dancing style (草书 cǎo shū) of 福:


In China, during the Chinese New Year, the Spring Festival, you may see the character 福 (f ú) everywhere:. Such as, at the front door of the house:
or at the show window of a department store:
Sometime people even use the 福 in their dress design:



The left radical of 福( fú )  is 示( shì ), which is also used in some other words, like 祭祀(sacrifice), 神明(God or spirit), 祈祷(pray) .  示( shì ) radical usually has some relation to the meaning of sacrifice, God or spirit, pray, hope and wish. 

The oldest style, Oracle style(甲骨文 jiǎ gǔ wěn ), of 福 will show its original meaning.


In the Oracle style, 福  is drawn as a picture, in which some spirits was sprinkled onto the altar from a special goblet. That is a vivid picture of the ancient sacrifice. So the original meaning of 福 is to  pray to heaven. Later on, 福 referred to the spirits and meat that were used for sacrifice.

As time went by, the character 福 had more and more extended meaning. Such as, being protected, or everything going on smoothly, or good luck.


We can see more detail of the meaning of 福 in the Book of History (《尚书》). It includes: longevity, richness, peaceful life, virtue, and a good ending of life.



While in the Book of Characters(《说文解字》), 福 means being protected from any evil.


Nowadays Chinese people think 福 means happiness and good luck. In some people's opinion, on the right side of the character 福, the 一 (yī) radical means house beam, the 口(kǒu) radical means big family, and 田(tián) radical means the field. Since these radicals are all in the character 福, it means to have a big family, your own house and land. That's a really good explanation of 福. :)


No matter how many different explanations about the meaning of 福 are there, one things is sure that the pursuit of happiness is everyone's dream.