Pasting New Year Prints

贴年画

The custom of pasting New Year Prints originated from the tradition of placing Door Gods on the external doors of houses. With the creation of board carvings, New Year paintings cover a wide range of subjects. The most famous ones are Door Gods, Surplus Year after Year, Three Gods of Blessing, Salary and Longevity, An Abundant Harvest of Crops, Thriving Domestic Animals and Celebrating Spring. Four producing areas of New Year Print are Taohuawu of Suzhou, Yangliuqing of Tianjin, Wuqiang of Hebei and Weifang of Shangdong. Now the tradition of pasting New Year paintings is still kept in rural China, while it is seldom followed in cities.

贴年画的风俗源自于把房子外面的门上贴门神的传统。随着木质雕刻品的出现，年画包含了更广泛的主题，最出名的就是门神，三大神-福神薪神和寿神，庄稼丰收，家畜兴旺，和庆祝春节。年画的四大产地分别是苏州桃花坞，天津杨柳青，河北武强和山东潍坊。现在中国农村仍然保持着贴年画的传统，而在城市里很少有人贴年画。

新春伊始，第一件事便是贴门神、对联。 每当大年三十日（或二十九），家家户户都纷纷上街购买春联，有雅兴者自己也铺纸泼墨挥春，将宅子里里外外的门户装点一新。春联也叫门对、春贴、对联、对子、桃符等。它以工整、对偶、简洁、精巧的文字描绘时代背景，抒发美好愿望，是中国特有的文学形式。

Pasting Spring Couplets

贴春联

"The Spring Couplet", also called "couplet" and "a pair of antithetical phrases", is a special form of literature in China. The Spring Couplet is composed of two antithetical sentences on both sides of the door and a horizontal scroll bearing an inscription, usually an auspicious phrase, above the gate. The sentence pasting on the right side of the door is called the first line of the couplet and the one on the left the second line. On the eve of the Spring Festival, every household will paste on doors a spring couplet written on red paper to give a happy and prosperous atmosphere of the Festival. In the past, the Chinese usually wrote their own spring couplet with a brush or asked others to do for them, while nowadays, it is common for people to buy the printed spring couplet in the market.

“春联”也被称为和“对联”对立的一对短语，在中国是一种特殊的文学形式。春联是由贴在门口两侧两组对立的句子组成，在门上面的横批通常是一个吉祥的短语。贴在门右侧的句子被称作对联的上联，左侧的为下联。除夕那天，每家都会在门上贴上红纸写的春联，传递出节日喜庆和热闹的气氛。在过去，中国人通常用毛笔自己写春联或者请别人写春联，而现在，人们普遍在市场上买印刷好的春联。