Sign of luck (?)

[jpexs]

Hello everybody,

I was in my favourite tea-shop yesterday... And there are some kind of chinese characters on the wall.

I have asked shop assistant, but she told me is is some kind of "chinese sign of luck"...so she do not really know details.

I am wondering what it means...

I took some photos... You can see them here: http://temp.jpexs.com/chars/

It is a little bit blurred, but I hope it can be recognized...

Please could somebody help me translate it?

I would like to impress my shop assistant:wink:

Thank you very much...

[muyongshi]

The first one is the character 寿 meaning long life.

The longer one...well I'm too tired to look at it

[xiaodan]

No, those words mean "wish good health and a long life"

that's China Calligraphy, Our Chinese usually hang it on the wall and make the house more beautiful or else, like you guys buy the painting and hang it on the wall.

[jpexs]

Thank you very much xiaodan,

one more question:

there is one big character and smaller characters under it.

You said "wish good health and a long life".

Why is one character bigger than others?

[Lu]

The largest character means 'long life', the smaller text elaborates on that.

Two aspects to such paintings: the meaning is auspicious, and the calligraphy is beautiful. So they're both lucky and good-looking.

[jpexs]

ok, thank you....

One more thing: (I think the last)

Could somebody please write me the text of the painting here with chinese characters in utf-8?