Happy nearly new year! I’m posting this slightly later than anticipated because we’ve just spent 6 hours in the car to travel to my 嫲嫲 maa4 maa4’s house (it was suppose to be a 3 hour journey). I hope your run up to new year’s is going smoother! If you need to keep the kids occupied while you prepare for the festivities, I’ve created some low-prep colouring sheets that your children can use to decorate your home (while, of course, learning some New Year phrases!)
Types of Fai Chun
It was really interesting for me to learn the names of the wall decorations traditionally used around the home for CNY. I’ve never known their names and I never thought to ask. I now know that there are three types of Fai Chun (揮春 fai1 ceon1):
- Doufang – Usually a square piece of red paper featuring one Chinese character and placed in the centre of a door.
- Chuntiao – Usually a horizontal or vertical red rectangle featuring a 4 character phrase.
- Chunlian – Also known as Spring Festival Couplets. These vertical red rectangles are placed on either side of a doorway and feature a line of poetry each that pair together.
Fai Chun Activity Sheets
I have created four different Doufang for your children to make with each of them featuring a different new years phrase. I know it’s not strictly traditional to have multiple characters on Doufang but I hope you will forgive me!
Printable #1 – Outline Version
Your little ones can while away an hour or two colouring in these Doufang. If you have a gold glitter pen, then they would look especially cool if the phrases were traced in gold! There’s also a space for them to practise writing the phrases featured on the Doufang.
Printable #2 – Colour Version
If you would like to save time, the colour version of my printable means you just have to spend a moment with some scissors to get your Doufang ready. I’m sure this will be useful to those who forgot to order their Fai Chun from Hong Kong in time.
I hope you enjoyed my printables. Please send me photos of your little ones’ creations to mamabearcantonese@gmail.com as I would love to see their work. 恭喜發財 gung1 hei2 faat3 coi4!
P.S. You can support Mama Bear Cantonese on Patreon. From £1 a month, you can access editable versions of all my resources as well as bonus content. Your generosity will help cover this site’s running costs. 多謝 do1 ze6!
Mama Bear Cantonese 