Double Happiness Day Approaches
Shuangxi jiri dao – Double Happiness Day Approaches
Yangjiabu, Shandong
35x45cm
Modern reprint of early twentieth century
In the first of these paired images “Double Happiness” means marriage, and so this print was intended to announce the wedding day of a young couple. A magpie, one on the wing carrying a Chinese character for ‘double happiness’ and another in the boy’s hand, is symbolic of marital happiness. The
boy, certainly representing the future offspring of the married couple, carries a pole laden with peaches – a fertility symbol, and a peony for beauty, honor and wealth. The bride to be carries a basket of gleaming jewels, perhaps meant to symbolize her dowry, and an unidentified object that may be a pomegranate – symbolizing fertility. In the opposite image the happy magpies are replaced with lucky bats, and the double happiness character is replaced with one ‘long life’.
