When the chill north wind is blowing hard, and winter is at its most powerful,
it is also the time that the Chinese New Year draws in. Folks will make lots of preparations such as repainting
the walls white, making new clothes, and cooking big meals for the New Year's eve.
One of the prevailing customs is buying and posting New Year pictures, especially
in the countryside of North China. Some red lanterns hanging from the eaves and
the auspicious New Year poster inside the room can best describe the festive atmosphere.
The New Year poster, as a special type of art, enjoys
a long history and far-reaching influence. Many artists are
farmers who express their good wishes and future dreams in the poster.
It also reflects their ideal life and artistic taste.
The Poplar and Willow Green county is
located 20 kilometers in the west of Tianjin. It is said the place was named by Emperor
Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty because of the fascinating scenery there. An old Chinese saying
goes like this: A great land is propitious for giving birth to
great men. It is also true with great art. The New Year poster emerged and took shape
there in as early as the 16th century. It is characterized by the distinctive local colorism,
thus, widly liked by the people. The poster came into being in the Ming dynasty and
became extremely popular at the beginning of the Qing. It is a wood engraving and watercolor
block printing, colored finally by hand. Its content varies from historic stories, legends,
local operas, folk customs, landscapes and so on. Most of them are closely connected with
people's lives.
The most well-known poster is called 'having grain to spare for years coming.'
There is a lovely smiling boy sitting in front of some lotus flowers and holding a big
carp in his arms. In Chinese, lotus is homonymic with "consecutive," and fish with
having something more than enough. Chinese consider this picture a good omen for
the coming year. And it is so widly spread that it almost becomes a representative work
of the New Year poster. There is also an interesting story about it. In the Qing Dynasty
once a rich man passed by the Poplar and Willow Green County on a boat. He was fascinated
by the vivid poster and bought one home. At night the boy turned alive, and came down
from the picture, giving him a big carp as gift.
But the man was so greedy that he placed a large basin before the poster and wanted to make
a fortune from it. Later the boy grew tired of him and went back to his hometown with his
carp, leaving the poster a piece of white paper.
The New Year poster also develops with time and becomes an exquisite decoration
nowadays. Not only do people buy them as gifts, but tourists take them home as
souvenirs as well.
Written by our column writer Hao Zhuo.
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