Ancient Chinese ladies combed their hair and dressed up, green silk and high buns, and often had flowers and gold noodles on their hair. In ancient times, Chinese people dressed up the door face of the house, and also used the "hairpin" - the door hairpin with a protruding sill on the gate. The door pin is the component that fixes the connecting rod used to install the upper shaft of the door leaf to the upper sill.
The head above this gate, slightly similar to the hairpin on a woman's head, is as small as two, usually four, or as many as several, with decorative effects and has become a common component of the old gate. As a result, the door of many residential houses is set up for aesthetic purposes and has no structural function.
Door hairpins come in square, diamond,hexagonal, octagonal, etc., decorated with patterns or text. The number of door hairpins is two or four, and the number of them reflects the level of rank. The higher-grade Golden Pillar Gate and the Barbarian Gate have four door hairpins, while the lower-grade Ruyi Gate has only two door hairpins.
The door hairpins are in square, rectangular, diamond-shaped, hexagonal, octagonal and other styles, and the front is either carved or depicted, decorated with patterned patterns. The pattern of the door hairpin is mostly seen in the flowers of the four seasons, and the four pieces are carved with spring orchid, summer, lotus, chrysanthemum, and winter plum, and the words "auspicious ruyi", "Fulu Shoude", "The world is too peaceful" and so on. When there are only two door hairpins, the words "auspicious" are carved, reflecting the profound connotation of Chinese culture.
People often say "door to door", of which "door pair" is "door hairpin". This statement makes the door hairpin have a status hierarchy symbol. The ancients attached great importance to the concept of discipleship, especially in marriage. When the matchmaker is talking about the media, he must first look at the number of door hairpins in the family, and then go to the family of the same number of door hairpins to talk about the matchmaker. Otherwise, it is "the door is not right, the household is not right".
In the Han Dynasty, there were already door hairpins. Ancient architect Liu Dunzhen's "Investigation of Ancient Architecture in Northern Henan Province": "The number of door hairpins is two of the Liao and Song relics that have been investigated by the China Construction Society. Only this temple (referring to the Shaolin Temple) Jin Zhenglong's second year of the West Hall teacher Pei, and Yuan Taiding three years of jugong pagoda, increased to four, which proves that the number of door hairpins in the Jin Dynasty has been the same as that of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
However, those who are located on both sides at the time, although square, can be centered on two bodies, or made of diamonds, or made of circles, and fail to be unified, which may be a style of transitional era. "The change in the number of door hairpins reflects its transition from practicality to decoration. As a component with structural function, only two door hairpins are needed on a hole door to play a fixed role. At the beginning, a pair of door hairpins were placed, and only fixed door leaf was fixed.
People pursue aesthetics and make it decorative, but there are still only two pieces. Later, people re-emphasized the decorative effect of the door hairpin and added four pieces of itself, which has lowered the structural function of the door hairpin to the second place. As for those doorpins that are purely for the sake of appearance, they are only decorative, not other.
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