Plum is a traditional Chinese flower which symbolize purity and nobility.

In the ancient past, Chinese scholars highly praise the plum for its distinctive character, purity, constancy, modesty. Printers and poets take plum as a motif in their articles.
In winter, plum blooms first to greet the coming of spring hence it is consider as a lucky pattern among the Chinese foks.

Bat due to its same pronounciation with the words ” happiness” and wealth has been used in traditional Chinese auspicious patterns.

This auspicious patterns with bat are widely used in China to express the wish for happiness. The most common one is the flying bat with cloud patterns - it’s a beautiful desire that happiness will come down from the heaven.

Butterfly is also used for traditional decorative pattern amongst Chinese folks as a symbol of auspiciousness.

As Butterfly is slim and graceful & loves to be with flowers. So it is often compared to love and happy marriage. Also “Butterfly” shares the same sound with the word Die - similar to octogenarian which symbolizes longevity.

Interestingly, there is a famous Chinese legendary story called “butterfly lovers”-the story of two young lovers, one a scholar, the other the daughter of a rich magistrate. The lovers met and fell in love. However they were forced to separate by her parents. Heartbroken, the lovers die and in death are united. They reincarnate as two butterflies and as butterflies the two are together forever!

Sheep is a very common pattern used in traditional Chinese decoration.

In ancient time, the word ” sheep” and ” lucky” could be used interchangeably. The pattern using Sheep means good fortune and auspiciousness.

The deer is said to be an immortal creature, the symbol of longevity.

It is said that a deer lives for 1,000 years which is the blue deer, for 2,000 years is the black deer. A deer together with a crane and Nanji Xian Weng ( an old immortal) often guards the Lingzhi.

Deer in Chinese sounds “lu” which shares the same pronounciation with the word ” handsome salary”.

In many designs/patterns, deer is often used to show longevity and wealth.

In the Chinese legen, there are four Gods; each of them controls a direction (north, south,east and west).

They are:

Qing dragon -the God of East

Bai Hu - the God of West

Rosefinch - the God of South

Xuan wu ,the combination of snake & turtle-the God of North

In China, the lion is said to be the endorsement of the law. In Buddhism, the lion is the protector of the temples and other holy palaces, and the protector of Buddha Wen Shu who is the leftside companion of Sakyamuni.

As the lion symbolizes courage and bravery hence it is very good guardian protector to homes and other places.

A pair of lions is especially used as a protection against evil spirits. It’s mainly used for sacred buildings and temples.

It can be placed on either side of the door. They are generally shown with both their front feet on the ground. We can display a pair of lions made of ceramic outside our main door.

There are also many different images of lion. For example a lion with its right front foot steps on a ball made of strips of silk and the other front steps on a small lion; or two lions playing a ball made of strips of silk.

During festivals, there dancing lions which is the symbol of joy.