The practice of placing written blessings at entrances is ancient, originally taking the form of inscribed peachwood tablets (桃符, táofú) hung at doorways during the Five Dynasties period. Peach wood was believed to ward off ghosts and evil spirits. The 10th-century ruler Meng Chang is credited with writing the first known spring couplet on peachwood: "New year receives excess of celebrations / Jiayin (a festival) bestows a long spring."

During the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang mandated the use of spring couplets across the empire, commissioning calligraphers and personally inspecting doors in Nanjing on New Year's morning. The tradition rapidly formalized into the red-paper couplets we recognize today, and a vibrant literary culture of couplet composition flourished among scholars.

A traditional spring couplet set consists of three parts: the right vertical strip (上联, shàng lián), read first; the left vertical strip (下联, xià lián), read second; and a shorter horizontal banner above the door (横批, héng pī) that summarizes the theme. The two vertical strips form a matched pair — parallel in structure, complementary in meaning, equal in length.

Great spring couplets are literary achievements: they must observe tonal patterns, feature matching grammatical structures, and express wishes in elegant, often allusive language. Common themes include family harmony, business prosperity, health, longevity, and scholarly success. Famous historical couplets are still reprinted today, though personalized calligraphy remains the gold standard.

One of the most charming and widely observed customs associated with New Year decorations is the posting of the character 福 (fú, "fortune" or "good luck") upside-down on doors and windows. The explanation is a pun: "upside down" in Chinese is 倒 (dào), which sounds identical to "to arrive" (到, dào). Therefore, 福倒 (fortune upside-down) sounds exactly like 福到 (fortune has arrived).

The custom reportedly originated during the Ming Dynasty when an emperor ordered that the 福 character be posted on all doors in a city. One illiterate family accidentally posted theirs upside-down, enraging an official. The emperor, in a famous act of clemency, declared that the family must have known fortune was arriving soon — and turned the potential punishment into a blessing. True or not, the story perfectly captures the Chinese delight in wordplay and auspicious interpretation.