恭喜發財 – Gong Xi Fa Cai

Instead of the usual wishing all my readers a prosperous Chinese New Year and a Happy Holiday message, this year I have picked a few rather unusual red couplets (揮春 / 春貼) for you … see picture below.  To those who are new to red couplets, they are usually displayed on the door frames and contain auspicious words or phrases (吉祥話). Maybe you are not familiar with the Chinese characters, maybe traditional Chinese is too much for you.  Here I am attempting to translate them using my 唔鹹唔淡 Chinese knowledge (literally translated to neither-salty-nor-bland that loosely means … not so good … ha ha ha).

The first one from the left is great for the ladies.  It literally means (1) to move people’s heart with striking beauty.  Don’t we all secretly want to stop traffic and to dazzle the opposite sex (don’t bluff!)?  And there is a guy version too!  Right next to it is (2) handsome and cool.  While (3) an obedient husband is definitely something for the wives to stick everywhere from PC gaming room to bedroom, I have difficulty in pondering if (4) a prosperous wife is for the husbands or the wives.  I personally think that if mine is rich and successful, I can stay at home and shake legs the whole day.  Hence, sure, I would love to stick red couplet #4 everywhere from laundry room to kitchen.

Looks and family politics aside, of course all of us want a (5) wallet or purse bulging with money and for the investors, (6) a bull market for both share and property.  What to do with all these money and good fortune?  For the available ones, (7) happy love affairs.  For the rest of us?  Perhaps (8) dreams come true.  People say beauty is only skin deep.  But it certainly wouldn’t harm to have (9) a lifelong beauty.

Okay, there you go!  I hope I have done a reasonable job in translating these interesting red couplets.  Picture above is produced by courtesy of Cynthia.  It was one of the MMS she sent to me while we did remote red couplets shopping.