The Presidential Office has designed special Lunar New Year giveaways featuring rams for the Chinese Year of the Ram.
On Monday the Presidential Office unveiled the designs for two different items. One is traditional New Year’s couplets – which are pairs of red paper hangings with propitious sayings – and the other is red envelopes which are filled with money and given as gifts.
This year the Lunar New Year holidays begin with New Year’s Eve dinner on February 18th. Families will hang New Year’s couplets prior to that, and will give away lucky red envelopes full of money.
This year the Presidential Office’s couplets feature President Ma Ying-jeou’s calligraphy, an eight character phrase that reads: “Oceans of Joy, Prosperous Citizens, and Powerful Nation”. Although instead of the Chinese character for “oceans”, the phrase cleverly substitutes the word for “sheep” or “ram”, which sounds the same and is a nod to the animal sign for the coming year.
A spokesperson said that the Presidential Office is planning to give away 250,000 of each of the items, to visiting guests, people whom the president and vice president encounter during trips throughout Taiwan, and visitors to the Cabinet’s regional offices.