The reason why the ancients used red beans to replace lovesickness is because in ancient times, people would use red beans to make wishes when they got married. The couple would be happy together for hundreds of years and grow old together. Therefore, red beans are used to express the love between men and women.

1. The application of red beans in poetry

Many individuals in ancient times pinned their longing on objects, and red beans are one of the objects that express their longing. Red beans are also called lovesickness beans, and some people call them mandarin duck beans. In ancient times, people used red beans to express the love-sickness between men and women. In the Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei wrote a poem called Lovesickness. In the poem, red beans are used as a synonym for lovesickness, describing the scene in the poem when the young men and women exchange tokens with each other.

2. The application of red beans in marriage

In ancient times, after getting engaged, men and women would often send a bunch of red beans to each other to wish for smooth love. During marriage, the bride will wear this string of red beans as a bracelet or necklace, which symbolizes the connection between the man and the woman. After the wedding, the couple will place six red beans on each side under their pillows to pray for the single-mindedness between the couple. May we be together for a hundred years and grow old together.

Red beans, as a lover’s object of lovesickness, are an image often used by the ancients to describe lovesickness in poems. Therefore, red beans often appear in the writings of literati. In this poem, Wen Tingyun used the voice of a woman to compose this poem. The lovesickness written in the poem is as if it is melted into the bones and cannot be forgotten. Do you know this? It materializes lovesickness and vividly describes the lingering appearance of lovesickness in people's hearts.