White Copper Fu Character Square Tag Necklace Pendant

The character fu is simple to write and hard to write well. Each horizontal and vertical has to sit steady; the radical on the left must gather in, the right side must open out, and only in that balance does the character have any life. On a plaque it is usually regular script or clerical script: regular is upright, clerical is broad and flat, two different temperaments. The character sits at the centre of the square with white left around it — more space reads clean, less reads full.

Two options, pendant alone or with a necklace. Alone, it takes a cord of your own; a thick cord holds a square plaque and keeps it from flipping over. The necklace version comes on a fine chain, so the plaque sways a little at the chest and taps against clothing as you walk. The phrase about gathering fortune and drawing wealth is good-luck language; it is pleasant to hear, and it does no harm whether or not you take it seriously.

The square plaque has a history in jade. From the Ming onward there was a type with no carving at all, just a plain face, and because “no ornament” sounds like “no trouble” it came to be called the wushi plaque — peace, nothing happening. Since then any plain square plaque tends to be grouped with it. The fu plaque is a variant: it keeps a character, but the four sides around it stay plain, so the composition follows the same logic. The edges are usually given a narrow bevel, and light runs around that rim, which makes the face look thicker than it is.

Hanging the character upside down is a comparatively late custom, roughly from the Ming and Qing, playing on the sound that turns “upside down” into “arrived”. On a plaque the character cannot be inverted; reversed, it is simply backwards and looks wrong. The difference makes a point: what goes on a door and what goes on a body follow different rules. A door wants the pun. A body wants the character upright, because what you see when you look down should be the right way up.

A white copper square plaque fears knocks at the corners. Those four points take the impact, and dropped on a hard floor it is always a corner that goes first. Everyday wear is fine; take it off for housework and for moving furniture. Fingerprints come off with a soft cloth, not a tissue — the wood fibre in paper leaves fine scratches on a polished face. After a full day the back carries a film of oil from skin; a dry cloth at night and it feels clean in the morning. Store it flat, with nothing pressing on the character.