Chinese Spring Festival couplets go global

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Pasting Spring Festival couplets on doors is one of the oldest Chinese New Year traditions to invite good luck for the upcoming year.

Now the traditional Chinese practice is growing in popularity around the world.

Photo provided by Yu Runrun

Yu Runrun, a 33-year-old Beijinger who owns a design store on China’s largest e-commerce platform Taobao, has sold Spring Festival couplets in English for the past three to four years.

Read as “eat well, sleep well, have fun day by day” and “study good, work good, make money more and more,” the amusing Chinglish couplets have sold about 500 pieces during the past month.

Each couplet is sold at 25 yuan (about 4 US dollars), almost twice the price of regular couplets. Yu told CGTN that it is interesting to see that more international friends are buying couplets: “A foreigner wanted to buy some yesterday. I told him that we are already on holiday. Then he said he would buy some after the Festival. ”

Photo provided by Yu Runrun

Yu continued to say that English couplets not only help spread Chinese culture to the world, they also appeal to Chinese, “Young people don’t care too much about couplets nowadays, but some say they will definitely try it after seeing the English ones. I think it has a creative style. We have designed more products, and hope to unveil it next year. ”

As China rings in the Lunar New Year on Friday, cities around the world have been decorated with couplets.

Screenshot from user @laaksojari Instagram page

According to Finnish Instagram user @laaksojari, Chinese elements have even conquered the hometown of Santa Claus! He shared a photo with couplets on both sides of a door last week, saying “Today I heard that the Chinese New Year is also celebrated in Lapland! Happy Dog Year from Finland!” (Google Translation) .

Photos from Wechat public account @yingguonaxieshier

Meanwhile, Chinese media revealed that two nurses in Sydney, Australia, recently have become online sensation for brushing out Chinese calligraphy for couplets, which says “Love Peace Hope” together with five Chinese characters of “Fu” (luckiness in Chinese), an annual collection game designed for the Spring Festival by China’s leading online payment platform Alipay.