Spring Festival couplets written by Yuan Chengyi

Spring Festival couplets are an essential part of Chinese New Year’s celebrations. Written on red paper, Spring Festival couplets combine Chinese poetic and calligraphic art and convey people’s best wishes for the new year.

Pu’er city in Yunnan province held a "Search for the Most Beautiful Spring Festival Couplets" event on Jan 22. Through a combination of expert scoring and online voting, the top 10 most beautiful couplets were selected from 60 finalists, including five original ones and five non-original ones.

Let’s admire the first original work written by Yuan Chengyi! It showcases a Spring Festival couplet written for the celebration of the Year of the Dragon in the calligraphic style of seal script, known as “Zhuanshu (篆书)” in Chinese. Its first line depicts a dragon soaring across the universe, amazing the world. The second line illustrates a dancing phoenix over the divine land, rejoicing in China's prosperity. The horizontal scroll, usually a four-character phrase that sums up the meaning of the two lines, conveys a wish for a flourishing nation and prosperous citizens.