43．门【門】部 gate; door

门神door-god

In Ancient China, on the evening of December 30 in Chinese Lunar calendar, people placed two carved peach-wood gods on either side of their front door. They hoped that these two wooden gods would help to keep disasters away from the family. These two gods came to be known as the Door-Gods.

Why do Chinese ancestors use peach wood to carve the Door-Gods? It is said that the two gods were brothers who lived on a mountain that had a giant peach tree growing on its peak. Every morning, the two brothers would check on the hundreds of ghosts and evils in the world to see if they had done anything harmful to mankind. If they did, then the two brothers would punish them.

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