LìChūn-Spring has come le

 LìChūn

春天(chūntiān) Spring started in China on February 3rd this year. LìChūn is the first of the 24 solar terms of the Chinese lunisolar calendar. This is the time of year that plants begin to grow and the weather gets warmer.

LìChūn(立春) literally means the beginning of the spring. The Chinese usually make and eat spring pancakes and rolls with their parents to celebrate LìChūn.

chūnbǐng(春饼) or “Spring Pancakes” stuffed with vegetables, spring rolls and /or carrots are eaten during this time which is a custom called 'bite the spring' on the first day of the start of spring. My āyí (nanny) prepared some delicious pancakes for me and I loved them! In some rural areas, "beat the spring cattle" is also a folk tradition for farmers apart from "bite the spring". A cow made of paper, mud or clay, is beaten by farmers with a colorful club or a whip which is done for good harvest and to let the winter laziness of the cattle go away. This is kind of similar to Pongal festival in India.

Chinese people also hang spring couplets or paper swallows in front of their doors for good luck.

Spring Festival Couplets

Spring Festival Couplets, chūnlián( 春联) in Chinese, is also known as Spring Couplets or Chinese New Year Couplets. It is one of the important customs during new year celebrations in China.

Black or golden characters are written on a red paper. They usually have some auspicious pair of lines vertically placed on both sides of the front door and a character horizontally placed above the doorframe. There is a belief that these couplets give good luck and prosperity in the new year.

Spring Couplets were said to be originated from Taofu, an inscription on boards made from peach trees in the Zhou Dynasty (1046 - 256 BC). There is also a story that some people believe. And the story goes like this. A rooster perched in a big peach tree crows at dawn to call all the traveling ghosts back. In front of the entrance of the dark world, there are two guards named Shentu and Yulei. If the ghosts harm anyone at night, the guards will kill them. People believed that peach trees can scare and control evil spirits, so they hung peach boards in front of their doors with the guards’ names written or inscribed on them.

During the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 AD), the wooden board was replaced by paper. The custom became popular in Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644 AD). When Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang traveled for inspection, he found these inscriptions interesting. In order to endorse this cultural activity, he ordered everybody to hang these inscriptions during the Chinese New Year. This tradition continues today and that is how it all started.

The order in which traditional Chinese character couplets are written is different from the ones written in modern China. Earlier, people wrote in vertical lines from right to left.

And yes there are rules for pasting the couplets and also to remove them, and these traditions vary depending on which part of China it is written.

In rural areas, people will not remove the old inscriptions until the next new year even if they are damaged by wind and rain. In modern cities, if the couplets are ruined or damaged, people tear them off after the Lantern Festival. They are also thrown away or burnt. There is a belief that Spring Couplets are Gods and after the couplets are burnt, God goes back to heaven, and this brings good luck to the family.

My calligraphy experience last year during Spring festival in Shangri la hotel, Dalian

Nowadays, the most commonly seen couplets in China are printed ones. People usually purchase the printed couplets a week before new year's eve. Supermarkets also sell them to their customers. Printed ones are cheaper, delicate and colorful.

For traditional couplets, Calligraphers (shūfǎjiā-书法家) use ink and brush(máobǐ-毛笔), and require excellent calligraphy (shǒubǐzi-毛笔字) skills that not everyone has. Some calligraphers conduct classes teaching the pupils how to write the characters in ink which is not an easy task (looks easier than it really is!) and also to write these Spring couplets. During new years, the handwritten couplets can be found in local supermarkets, where people can choose their favorite lines and ask the calligrapher to write them.  The printed couplets however lack good calligraphy and most of them have vulgar wishes for wealth and power.