The first couplet is when the family is blessed and happy every day; the second couplet is when the money comes in and peace comes every year.
When posting Spring Festival couplets, distinguish the upper and lower heads of the house.
When facing the door, the right hand direction is the upward direction, and the left hand direction is the downward direction. The writing habit of the ancients was to write vertically from the right, and to write horizontally from right to left, with the right at the top. Therefore, when pasting couplets in the past, the first couplet was affixed to the first (right), and the second couplet was affixed to the lower first (left).
After liberation, the writing format of the horizontal scrolls of Spring Festival couplets was mostly changed from left to right. Therefore, the current Spring Festival couplets can also be pasted on the left with the top couplet on the left and the bottom couplet on the right, which is suitable for modern people's reading habits. .
Extended information
Origin
It is said that Spring Festival couplets come from peach charms. According to "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: Etiquette", the peach charm is six inches long and three inches wide, and the two gods "Shen Tu" and "Yulei" are written on the peach board. "On the first day of the first lunar month, a peach charm is made and placed in the household. It is called a fairy tree and is feared by all ghosts." During the Five Dynasties, in the palace of Western Shu, someone wrote couplets on the peach charm. "Yanjing Shisuiji" of the Qing Dynasty said: "Spring couplets are peach charms."
Another source of Spring Festival couplets is spring stickers. The ancients often posted the word "Yichun" on the beginning of spring. Gradually developed into Spring Festival couplets, expressing the Chinese working people's good wishes to ward off evil spirits, eliminate disasters, and welcome good fortune.
It is said that this custom originated in the Song Dynasty and became popular in the Ming Dynasty. By the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic quality of Spring Festival couplets had been greatly improved. Nowadays, it has become a custom to put up Spring Festival couplets. When red couplets are posted on the door, the house suddenly becomes brighter. As the poem goes: "When the joy comes, the red color shines, and every household posts Spring Festival couplets; bidding farewell to the old year and welcoming the new one, the wheel of time always moves forward."