"Fu", one of the Chinese characters that best epitomize China's time-honored culture, is a must in Spring Festival celebrations. Nowadays, "fu," literally meaning auspiciousness, blessing or happiness, usually appears as a cultural symbol to express people's wishes for the coming new year. Yet, in the past, the character mainly meant luck and fortune, which also represented the unanimous hope of the society.

The tradition of pasting the character "Fu" on walls, doors and doorposts has existed among the people for a long time. According to Menglianglu, a book recording the folk customs in the Song Dynasty (960-1127), people at that time had already been practicing the tradition.

The character can either be written or printed. The accompanying patterns usually include a variety of themes like the god of longevity, a birthday peach, a carp, a dragon and a phoenix as well as other themes. The character written on paper can be pasted both normally and upside down, because in Chinese the "up-sided fu" is homophonic with "fu comes (fu dao le)", both being pronounced as "fudaole."

Author: Jessie