Photo taken on Jan. 18 shows citizens are busy in buying decorations for Spring Festival at Beihu Market of Chenzhou City. A variety of goods, including Chinese knots, Chinese character “fu”, red lanterns, spring festival scrolls, are among best sellers in the city’s trading centers.
Background information:
Fu, one of the Chinese characters that best epitomize China's time-honored culture, is a necessity in Spring Festival celebrations. Nowadays, fu, literally meaning auspiciousness, blessing or happiness, usually appears as a cultural symbol to express people's wishes for the coming new year.
The character can either be written or printed. The accompanying patterns usually include a variety of themes like the god of longevity, a birthday peach, a carp, a dragon and a phoenix as well as other themes. The character written on paper can be pasted both normally and upside down, because in Chinese the "Reversed fu" is homophonic with "fu comes", both being pronounced as "fudaole."
Translator: Xiao Juan
Source: Hunan Official Web Portal