Chinese New Year couplets

Couplet is also called as antithesis. It is a kind of Chinese traditional literatual form. Either in the first poem collection, "The book of Poems", in the world, or the poems in Chinese traditional style written later antithesis was used often.

A Chinese antithesis has strict standard, that is, the total number of the words, the number of characters of each word, the nature of each word, and tone of each character of the first line and second line of the antithesis are correspondently same with each other. Because the strict requirement, making antithesis has been being a favorite word game for Chinese. In addition, because every Chinese character can be easily writen in same size, the first line and second line of an antithesis look sysmetrical to each other, therefore antithesis is also an favorite decoration in China. On the ancient buildings which still exist today, man can usually find plaques with antithesises. A line of a couplet can be only one character, but there is no upper limit to the total character number of an line. The longest couplet in China is the couplets on the plaque on the pavilion beside the Yangtze-river in Jiangjin. The couplet has total 1612 words. 

Chinese New Year couplet was created by the emperor Meng Chang in the period of Five Generations and Ten States (907-960) of China. On a New Year party, Meng Chang asked his ministers to make some couplets and would write the best of the couplets on the "Peach wood tablet" of the palace. However, none of the couplets made by the minister could satisfy the emperor. So the emperor made one by himself and wrote it on the peach wood tablet. People heard of the story and began to decorate their own peach wood tablets with couplets. Every year, when people changed their peach wood tablets, they shift also the old couplets. In the modern time, many Chinese no longer use peach wood tablets, however, they still keep the customer of decorating their homes with couplets for Chinese New Year celebration. The Chinese New Year couplets are written on red paper and posted beside the front doors.

The contents of Chinese New Year couplets must be auspicious and pleasant and are realted to Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year couplets increase the festive atomosphere of Chinese New Year and express the wishes of people for good life. For Chinese who traditionally think highly of the symbolic meaning of decoration, Chinese New Year couplets are also a kind of blessing.

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