Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, October 29 – Since it is time for Halloween, and bats are associated with Halloween in the Western world, I thought I’d write about bats in China. Unlike how bats are traditionally considered “scary” for Halloween, they are a symbol of good luck in Chinese culture. The Chinese characters for bat, 蝠 fú (pronounced “foo”), and good fortune 福 fú, are pronounced the same. Quoting from online: “Often the bat is shown flying upside down because the character (dao 倒) for "upside-down" and the character (dao 到) meaning "to have arrived" are both pronounced dao (like “dow” rhyming with cow). Therefore, if a person were to say "the bat is flying upside down" a listener could just as easily hear this as "happiness has arrived" which, of course, has a very auspicious connotation.” According to Feng Shui, two bats bring double happiness, and five bats represent the five blessings in Chinese culture: longevity, wealth, health, love of virtue and a natural death. My pictures show bats on a tea cup and also on a complete tea set. The character written on the upper part of the cup is the “good fortune” 福 fú. Can you recognize it? Quote from http://primaltrek.com/impliedmeaning.html