The Spring Festival always begins on doors and walls. Spring couplets (春联) stand for people’s wishes for a happier life in the coming year.
The couplets are written on red paper. They are the most important symbol of the Spring Festival. Although people are busy with all kinds of things before the Spring Festival, sticking couplets is always in the first place on the to-do list. And my mother would ask me to take some gifts to people who wrote couplets for us. When they were writing, I would watch how they used the brush to create these wonderful works.
Later when I was a little older, my parents encouraged me to learn how to write couplets. I asked some elder people to teach me some skills. When learning from them, I became greatly interested in traditional culture. Every time when our family visited relatives during the Spring Festival, I always collected the poems of the couplets and used them to express my good wishes like “health, wealth and long-life” to my relatives.
Nowadays as the science and technology is developing rapidly, couplets are mainly produced by machines. We can easily buy all kinds of beautiful couplets on the streets. Though forms of making couplets have changed, the best wishes that couplets express remain. The red paper and black words are not only used to write the couplets, but also carry our love for traditional culture. They will never be forgotten.
【小题1】What do spring couplets stand for in the Spring Festival?【小题2】How did the writer express good wishes to his or her relatives?
【小题3】Why can we easily buy all kinds of beautiful couplets on the street?
【小题4】Do you think we should stick couplets or not? Why? (Write 30 words or more)
