Is the axe king Cai Wang lucky to stick left or right?

On the eve of the Spring Festival, every household should buy or ask calligraphers to help write new couplets. Then one or two days before the first day of New Year's Day, the old couplets are torn off and new ones are put on to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, which will increase the festive atmosphere of the festival.

It is said that the custom of posting Spring Festival couplets originated in the Song Dynasty and was popular in the Ming Dynasty. The couplets depict beautiful images with neat, concise and exquisite words, express good wishes, and imply that they pray for the whole family to have good health, good luck, prosperous business and academic progress in the new year.

Before the Chinese New Year, pasting couplets is an important custom for Zhanjiang people to celebrate the New Year.

What couplets do people like? As long as you pay close attention, "people are prosperous, rich and happy", "people are prosperous, people are prosperous, and their careers are thriving", "adding splendid scenery, great achievements in the future will be even more brilliant", "people are prosperous, wealth and wealth are both happy", "people are prosperous, their wishes are fulfilled, and they are safe all the year round" and "the career is brilliant year after year and the future is bright. These couplets are the most commonly used in Zhanjiang. Because these couplets are written almost every year, even children can write the next one as long as they read the first one.

Couplets vary in size, including large, medium and small. Generally, each couplet should be equipped with a horizontal couplet, such as "spring, summer, autumn and winter are auspicious, and the nobles meet in the southeast and northwest", and the horizontal couplet should be equipped with "safe access". Perhaps it is the reason why Zhanjiang people often travel north and south, so this couplet is the most commonly used and the most common one among Zhanjiang people.

Sticking Spring Festival couplets is generally a more knowledgeable elder in the family, because sticking Spring Festival couplets is not casual, but exquisite.

So, what are the stresses of posting Spring Festival couplets?

When posting Spring Festival couplets, you must first find out which pair of couplets is the first and which pair is the second, or you will make a joke. Crosslinking is usually easy to identify. It must be the short one. The boss matched it when he bought it.

Then, how to distinguish the upper and lower couplets of Spring Festival couplets? I once consulted a famous calligrapher about this matter. He taught me a simple method, that is, "three tones and four tones are the upper part, and one tone and two tones are the lower part."

Everyone knows that Chinese pinyin has one (ah ā), two (×), three (m 4) and four (à), right? Then when we distinguish Spring Festival couplets, we can look at the last word of Spring Festival couplets and take the pronunciation of this word as the distinguishing standard. If the pronunciation is three or four, it is the upper part, and if there are two sounds, it is the lower part (except in rare cases, it depends on the content and so on). For example, our most common Spring Festival couplets are "prosperous people, all the best, and peace forever". You see, the last word "Gui" is Gui, which is four tones, so it is the first part, and "An" is a sound, so it is the second part; For example, "Fuxing takes good care of every family, so every family is healthy", "Jing" is pronounced as jǐng, which means three times, so it is the first part, and "Kang" is pronounced as kāng, which means once, so it is the second part. Isn't it simple?

Of course, the master also said that this is only a general situation, and there are also special cases, such as: "Harmony is precious, and a word is precious. Although the phonetic notation of the word "fu" is fú, which belongs to the upper tone in modern Chinese, in ancient Chinese, "fu" is an entering tone and belongs to the upper tone in Guangzhou dialect, so it is a dull tone. The ending of this couplet meets the requirements of the last part. There are other situations that need to be distinguished according to content and common sense.

When posting Spring Festival couplets, it is also very particular whether to post them from the left or from the right first. Sticking Spring Festival couplets usually goes from right to left. Because when you watch Spring Festival couplets, you should read them according to the ancient style, and you should read them vertically, and read them from right to left to read the meaning. Some friends are right. If there is a horizontal batch, the Spring Festival couplets will be posted according to the horizontal batch. If the horizontal batch is read from right to left, the upper part is on the right and the lower part is on the left. If the horizontal batch is read from left to right, the left part is the upper part and the right part is the lower part.