春聯 | Translating Taiwan 台灣翻版

Out and about in Taipei over the new year, I spotted quite a lot of Year of the Tiger couplets, some printed, some more original. Some of them even gave an insight into the political persuasion of the inhabitants.

This couplet was distributed by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), chair of the Taiwan People’s Party, and it was one of the main rivals to the one issued by President Tsai Ing-wen and Vice President Lai Ching-te. If you’re a Ko-fen (柯粉/a fan of Ko Wen-je) or just fancy a few political discussions in your lobby with neighbours of different political stripes, you can print it yourself at the Taipei City gateway here. The Chinese word for “tiger” (虎 hu3) is a near-homonym for 「褔」 (good fortune/fu2), especially in Taiwanese-accented Mandarin (台灣國語) in which the “h” sound is often pronounced as “f”. So this couplet is a play on this, with the first two characters having the dual meaning of “tiger pouncing” and “a jump in wealth.”

President Tsai volleyed with this snazzy design 「福運旺來」 (again, good fortune also hints at its near homonym in tiger):

The couplet on the right of the doorway below reads: 「事業興旺」 (asking for success in career), while on the right panel there is another tiger couplet.

On the left panel of the door there are some quite cool examples of compound characters (合體字):

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Walking around Guting, even though most buildings are apartment blocks, most were displaying couplets by their door. I’ve featured some of the more interesting ones below.

This doorway was funny because I imagined dueling households displaying couplets from President Tsai Ing-wen and Lai Ching-te vs. Ma Ying-jeou and his wife Chow Mei-ching respectively. President Tsai has gone with the classic idiom 「扭轉乾坤」(niǔzhuǎnqiánkūn) “to turn luck around” (literally, to upend heaven and earth). As 「扭」(niǔ to turn) and 「牛」(niú ox/cow) are near homonyms, the 「牛」 for the year of the ox stands in for it.

Former president Ma Ying-jeou and his wife, meanwhile, have called for equanimity and optimism in what was largely been interpreted as a dig at President Tsai‘s popularity with the words of the Hongwu Emperor 「心天之心平常心、樂天之樂金牛樂」. Ma’s explanation is that the son of heaven (read president) must respect the wishes of the people to rule properly, and that people need to be optimistic despite the pandemic and the ractopamine pork imports (video here).

I was (perhaps naively) surprised to see a Baptist church joining in on the fun:

「合體字」 compound characters featured heavily in a lot of the door dressings. The one on the right below is the same as the Presidential one above: 「牛轉乾坤」 with a stylized 「牛」.

There were even some compound characters from phrases in Taiwanese, like the one below: 「好孔來阮家」 hó-khang lâi góan ka (good things come to our family). Right beside it is 「黃金萬兩」 (10,000 taels of gold).

The banner below shows five different compound characters:
Looks like 「大利大吉」 (profit and fortune)
「日進斗金」 (a dou of gold enters every day)
「日日見財」 (every day meet with fortune)
「黃金萬兩」(10,000 taels of gold) (repeat of above)
「招財進寶」 (attract fortune and enter treasures)