Good luck

I was visiting my friend's flat in the Mid-Levels when I noticed that her neighbour's door had a bright red square patch with the Chinese character for 'luck' written in gold stuck upside down.
"Why has your neighbour stuck the sign for good luck upside down?" I asked my friend. My friend is not Chinese, so she shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know," she said. "I didn't even know it was upside down."
It struck me as very odd, but I forgot about it.

Then this morning, as I was sitting on the top floor of the bus in to work, I saw a bright red square patch with the golden 'Luck' written on it hanging from trees in Central. They were decorations for the Mid-Autumn Festival which happens towards the end of September. I remembered the upside down 'luck' sign again. Perhaps the ghostly spirit of Luck walks around buildings upside down, so it wouldn't get to read the red invitations to it unless the invites were also upside down? I imagined scores of lucky Chinese apparitions walking around apartment blocks upside down, feet on the ceiling, searching desperately for one door that they could make sense of. No wonder good luck was difficult to get.

"It's because the word for 'upside down', do jun, sounds the same as the word for 'arrival'. So you post it upside down for good luck to 'arrive'," Chinese Sad Associate explained when I asked her this morning.
"Poor Luck! It has to arrive upside down?" I said.

Even Luck seems to have difficulties in life. Ha.