CRI听力: New Year Posters

If you visit a Chinese family during the lunar New Year, you will probably find vibrant paintings spotted on the doors and walls of their home. Putting up New Year posters during the Spring Festival is an old Chinese tradition.



Lin Lin tells us more.



The tradition first began more than 2,000 years ago during the Han Dynasty, when people started to draw warriors on doors, hoping to protect themselves from ghosts and all evil things. These warriors were thought of as gods of the doors. The most common gods of the doors were Shen Shu and Yu Lv, two giant brothers who were known for their ability to ward off demons harmful to human beings and viciously feeding them to a tiger.

In the Tang Dynasty, an emperor commissioned a prominent painter, Wu Daozi, to portray Zhong Kui, one of the gods of the doors. The emperor had the painting copied and distributed among ministers of the court. This is regarded as the origin of Chinese New Year posters.

Liu Guosheng, a Chinese folk artist, tells the meaning of New Year posters.

"One of the prevailing customs to celebrate the festival is to buy and put up New Year pictures, especially in the countryside in northern China. This special folk art helps express and enrich the joyful atmosphere of the Spring Festival."

New Year posters were originally produced in ink, and later some prints were hand-brushed with paint. Mass production was subsequently made possible by the discovery of polychrome printing about three hundred years ago.

The motifs of these posters range from historic stories, legends, and opera plots, to folk customs and landscapes. Most are closely connected with rural life.

Zhang Yunxiang is another folk artist of New Year posters.

"In rural society, there is a saying that you must buy posters and put them up in the New Year even if you are very poor. Every peasant family would like to put up posters to pray for a safe, and more importantly, a rich New Year."

Zhang Yunxiang indicates that the subjects in the posters vary according to the area where the poster is produced. For example, for the traditional ones in his region, Wei County in eastern China's Shandong province, boys dominate posters.

Some pictures enjoy nationwide fame.

"The most representative ones are 'God of Fortune' and 'Qilin Delivering Sons'. 'God of Fortune' is a god who can bring wealth. Qilin is an auspicious beast who can bring people the gift of children. Wealth and children tend to be people's favorites."

Another well-known poster is 'Spare Grain for Coming Year'. It depicts a smiling boy sitting in front of lotus flowers and holding a big carp in his arms. The Chinese word for 'lotus' has a similar sound to the word for 'consecutive' and the word for 'fish' is also a homonym for 'abundance'. This picture is considered as an omen of luck for the coming New Year.

Chinese New Year posters reveal in designs and pattern perspectives of people from all different walks of life. However, as Zhang Yunxiang says, the traditional ones are still more welcome.

"We still keep the traditional designs and patterns for most of the posters. More people prefer them as they accurately express their personal expectations for life."

Xu Feng is a New Year poster fan.

"All these traditional posters recall my childhood. I am from Beijing. The posters remind me of my happy time of putting up them with families when I was a child."

In the past, putting up New Year posters was a must for celebrating Chinese New Year in both rural and urban areas.

Chinese put up posters on walls during Spring Festivals and kept them there for a whole year. When the following Spring Festival arrived, old posters would be replaced by new ones. Nowadays, urbanites spend less time on them, but appreciating them is always a fun pastime.