In many homes, doors and windowpanes get a new coat of red paint during the Spring Festival. All the door panels will be pasted with Spring Festival couplets, highlighting Chinese calligraphy with black characters on red paper about a foot long in black or gold ink, giving an atmosphere of rejoicing and festivity.

A couplet is made up of two lines of verse which are called the "head" and the "tail" respectively and which should correspond with each other phonologically and syntactically, word for word and phrase for phrase. The themes of the verses would suggest good fortune, longevity and, traditionally, male offspring.

Also, pictures of the Gate God, a type of New Year's wood block painting, are pasted on doors and, according to their roles, there are the main gate god, secondary gate god, back gate god and wing room gate god, which will be posted on the doors to ward off evil spirits and welcome peace and abundance.

Editor: Catherine