If you’ve walked past the front entrance or student services and library displays, you may have noticed red and gold adorning the doors and walls. 

Green Level Chinese Student Assocation put up these decorations in celebration of the Lunar New Year, a fifteen-day festival celebrated by many East and Southeast Asian countries. Traditionally, Chinese people will clean out the bad luck of the previous year on the eve of the new year, and put up different decorations to bring good luck into the oncoming year on the first day of the festival. 

Lunar New Year decorations are up thanks to the GLHS Chinese Student Association!🏮🎉 Check them out near the main entrance, front office, and student services! 🐯🏮 pic.twitter.com/VPPVl8cSqP

— Green Level High School (@GreenLevelHigh) February 7, 2022

Here’s an explanation of a few of the decorations you may spot in the halls:

• Upside Down “福/Fu”
  • 福/Fu means luck and is one of the most popular decorations during the New Year. It is purposely put upside down to symbolize an “downpour” of luck, because in Chinese, “upside down” and “pour” are homophones. It’s common to see this displayed on front doors/windows to invite luck into the home.

Gallery • 1 Photos

Courtesy of GLHS CSA

Joey Sun and Amanda Wang put up the "Fu" character to pour luck into the school!

• 对联 / Dui Lian (Couplet)
  • A Chinese couplet is a type of poetry that adheres to a specific set of rules, one of which is that there are two lines both with the same number of characters. When decorating for the New Year, people will hang each line of the poem on each side of the door. These couplets will typically express well wishes for the next year.  

Gallery • 1 Photos

Wikimedia Commons

An example of couplets being posted outside of a Chinese home for the New Year.

• 窗花 / Chuang Hua (Paper Cutting)
  • 窗花 directly translates to “Window Flower” and has been recorded to be used ever since the 6th century. Knives and scissors will be used to cut red pieces of paper to depict animals, people, and nature to symbolize luck and happiness. 

Gallery • 1 Photos

A. Guo

Two "Fu" chuang huas are displayed in front of the library.

• 灯笼 / Lanterns
  • The fifteenth and last day of the Spring Festival is actually called the Lantern Festival. Lanterns are typically red to symbolize good fortune, but can be made of many different materials. In fact, Yu Guizhen, a Chinese grandma of a Green Level student recalls, “Because where we lived was so cold, -30 degrees celsius, we would make ice lanterns,” or in other instances, a lack of money meant getting creative, “We would carve out potatoes to use as lanterns.” 

Gallery • 1 Photos

Wikimedia Commons

Ice lanterns are made with buckets, cold temperatures, water, and fire.

• Red Colors
  • Red is a lucky color in China: the color of wedding dresses, allowance envelopes, and Chinese New Year decorations! That’s why all the decorations you’ll spot will almost always be red.