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The days leading up to the New Year, Mom says, should be devoted to cleaning. To start off the year right, your house needs a total, thorough washing: windows, doors, inside, outside, everything. Chinese tradition takes this one step further. Any work that’s being done on your house, whether it’s a simple paint job or total kitchen renovation, is hastened to a finish before New Year’s Eve.

Once the house is clean, painted, and renovated, it’s time to decorate. In China (and Taiwan), you can buy poems from street vendor-calligraphers. The poems are painted on red (considered a lucky color, good for any time of year) posters that might be up to six feet long. The verse might either be a well known classic the calligrapher committed to memory long ago, most likely as a student, or an original he’s composed himself. These poems usually augur good fortune for the coming year, prosperity, success for the offspring, etc. They’re hung outside the home around doorways and on windows to welcome such prophecies into the home and make them come true.

Many people will also place a square poster on the door with just one character written on it. And sometimes, you’ll see the poster hung upside down. In Mandarin, dao, or “upside down,” can also mean “arrives” or “comes,” so turning the character “Spring” or “fortune” upside down means “Spring arrives” or “Fortune comes.”

Photos by “*Susie* (top) and China Chas (above).