Spring Festival couplets are a traditional decoration to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The creative English and Chinese, or “Chinglish,” couplets have become a new trend among young people in China to celebrate the Year of the Dog.
These English couplets use simple language, such as “eat well, sleep well, have fun day by day”, “study hard, work hard, make money more and more”. They also have words like “gelivable”, which means awesome and is a combination of the Chinese word “geli” and the English suffix.
Traditionally, Spring Festival couplets are a combination of a pair of Chinese poetry lines which is affixed vertically on both sides of the front door, and another four words scroll to put on the horizontal doorframe.
This year, English language couplets suddenly started trending in China. According to Taobao, the Chinese online shopping giant, the average price for one pair of English language couplets are way pricier than traditional couplets, ranging from $5 to $50.
Yu Runrun, a shop owner in Beijing told China Daily that he expected to sell about 600 English language couplets during the Chinese New Year. In his store, one pair of the English couplets costs around $5 dollars, double the price of Chinese couplets he sells. He said, "most of our buyers are young people who want to look cool and are willing to pay extra for fashionable things.”
Some Chinese people in Richmond discussed the trend online in a local WeChat group with comments “I won’t buy this type of couplets” and “the English language on the couplets sounds so weird.”
Many Chinese people in China commented on social media, saying this type of couplets is creative, cute and it is a way of cultural output and integration.
Haha, I understood the meaning of the couplets.
Chinglish, make money more more more. Haha, so cute.
It is my first time to see English couplets. They are so creative.
This is culture output.
I have to say, this is the “perfect combination of western and Chinese culture”.
