Miscellaneous Talks on Southwestern Shandong Dialects - Door Pairs

The "door pairs" and "pairs" in the spoken language of southwestern Shandong are "couples". "Chinese Dictionary" explains the door pair as "mén duì in pinyin, a couplet posted on the door during the New Year or wedding celebrations", and gives the "Common Sayings Kao Yuan." "Door Dui" - auspicious words made for the New Year; they are made into couplets and pasted on the door, which is called "Door Dui".

After checking the information, I found that there are many types of door pairs. According to the different places of use, they can be divided into door cores, frame pairs, horizontal drapes, spring strips, doujin, etc. "Door center" is affixed to the upper center of the door panel; "frame pair" is affixed to the left and right door frames; "Hengpi" is affixed to the crossbar of the lintel; "spring strips" are affixed to the corresponding places according to different contents; "Dojin" is also called "door leaf", which is square and diamond-shaped, and is often attached to furniture and screen walls.

Older people may still remember that in the past, the "door heart" was very important when posting pairs. Most of the "seven character sentences" written with brushes can also be understood as the "door heart". A pair of "couples", plus the "frame pair" on the door frame, should be two "couples". Those from wealthy families would buy a New Year picture of the door god as an "upgraded" version of the "door heart" and paste it on the courtyard door. There were quite a lot of "spring strips" at that time, some were stuck on livestock troughs, some were stuck on pig pen fence doors, some were stuck on kitchen stoves, some were stuck on grain stores, and some were stuck on important tree trunks in the yard. etc.; the simplest "Doujin" is a palm-sized handwritten pair with the word "Fu" or "Spring", which is pasted on the cabinet, the Eight Immortals table, the table, and the "Doujin" posted on the wall of the main room (main room). "jin" are both big blessing characters. If there is a central hall, you can put a small blessing character on it or not.

In my impression, in the rural areas of southwestern Shandong, it seems that only the men in the family can post pairs at the end of the year, and I have never seen women posting pairs. When pasting pairs, be sure to clarify the upper and lower couplets. The upper couplet should be pasted on the right hand side (that is, the left side of the door), and the second couplet should be pasted on the left hand side (that is, the right side of the door). The upper and lower couplets should not be pasted backwards; It is also posted on the left and right sides. If you stick it upside down, others will laugh at you. At that time, all the pairs bought back from the market were sold and sold, and the upper and lower lines were clearly distinguished. The adults put the bought pairs in a relatively high place in the house to prevent children from taking them out to play and messing up the order. Nowadays, we don’t have to worry about this when posting pairs, because there are basically no illiterates in rural areas. They are all literate and can distinguish the upper and lower couplets.