Every Spring Festival, every family puts up the character "Fu" (which means "blessing") on doors, walls, and door frames. Putting up the character "Fu" during the Spring Festival is a traditional custom in China. According to "Meng Li Lu", it says: "As the New Year approaches, shops are filled with goods, door gods and peach wood charms are painted, and spring banners are placed..." "No matter how big or small the house is, people clean their doorways, remove dust and dirt, clean the courtyards, replace door gods, hang red lanterns, nail peach wood charms, put up spring banners, and worship ancestors." The phrase "putting up spring banners" refers to the character "Fu" written on red paper.
The modern meaning of the character "Fu" is "happiness," but in the past it referred to "blessing" or "luck." Whether now or in the past, putting up the character "Fu" during the Spring Festival expresses people's longing for a happy life and wishes for a better future. To fully express this longing and wish, people even paste the character "Fu" upside down, representing "happiness has arrived" or "blessing has come." There is also a legend about pasting the character "Fu" upside down in folk tradition. When the Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was preparing to kill people using the character "Fu" as a secret mark, Ma Huanghou, a kind-hearted empress, ordered all families in the city to put up a "Fu" character on their doors before dawn. Naturally, no one dared to disobey the imperial decree, so every family put up a "Fu" character. Among them, there was a family that did not know how to read and mistakenly pasted the "Fu" character upside down. The next day, when the emperor sent someone to check the streets, they found that every family had put up a "Fu" character, and one family had pasted it upside down. Upon hearing the report, the emperor became very angry and immediately ordered the imperial guards to execute the entire family. Ma Huanghou realized the situation was dangerous and quickly told Zhu Yuanzhang, "The family knew you were coming today, so they intentionally pasted the "Fu" character upside down, which means 'blessing has arrived,' right?" After hearing this, the emperor thought it made sense and ordered the release of the family. A great disaster was finally averted. From then on, people began to paste the character "Fu" upside down, to seek good luck and to commemorate Empress Ma.
In folk tradition, the character "Fu" is also carefully drawn into various patterns, such as the Old Man of Longevity, longevity peaches, carp leaping over the dragon gate, bountiful harvests, and auspicious dragons and phoenixes. In the past, there was a saying that "On the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month, every household writes large characters." The character "Fu" used to be written by hand, but now it can be purchased at markets and stores.
