The Chinese character “Fu” is very important in Chinese culture. It means happiness and good luck. People use it as a symbol to share their hopes for the new year during the Spring Festival.
The tradition of putting the “Fu” character on walls, doors and windows has been there for a long time. According to Menglianglu, people in the Song Dynasty (960-1127) had already been practicing the tradition. When we put the character on walls, it can be put both normally and upside down — as in Chinese the “reversed fu” means “fu comes”.
Speaking of the “reversed fu”, there is a story behind it. Long ago, in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the first emperor Zhu Yuanzhang planned to kill a family. He marked the family’s door with the Chinese character "fu". His wife, Empress Ma, wanted to do something to save the family. She ordered every family to put the character "fu" in front of their doors.
All the people followed her order, but one family didn’t know how to read or write. They put the character upside down. On the second day, when the soldiers went to the streets, they found the character everywhere, including the upside down one. When the emperor heard this, he was very angry. He ordered the soldiers to kill the family who had put the character in the wrong way.
Empress Ma found the situation very serious. She quickly explained, “That family had known that you would come to visit them today, so they did that on purpose. Doesn’t that mean ‘Fu comes’ today?” The emperor agreed with his wife and decided to let the family go. Since then, people have put the “Fu” character upside down to hope for good luck and to remember Empress Ma.
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