Koi Fish Meaning: Luck, Perseverance and the Dragon Gate

Few animals carry as much meaning as the koi. In China and Japan this ornamental carp stands for luck, perseverance and success won by effort, and it appears on everything from temple walls to New Year cards. Here is where that meaning comes from.

The Dragon Gate

The best-known story is Chinese. Carp swimming up the Yellow River reach a great waterfall called the Dragon Gate. Most turn back. The few that keep leaping, against the current, until one finally clears the top are transformed into dragons.

The phrase "the carp leaps over the Dragon Gate" (鲤鱼跃龙门) became a saying for anyone who succeeds through persistence. It was used for scholars passing the imperial examinations, and is still said to students, new graduates and anyone starting something hard.

Luck and abundance

In Chinese, the word for fish, yú (鱼), sounds like the word for surplus or abundance (余). That makes fish, and koi in particular, a fixture of New Year decorations, where they wish the household more than enough for the year ahead. Koi drawn in pairs are also a wish for a happy marriage.

The characters 锦鲤 (jǐnlǐ), "brocade carp", are now used informally in China to mean a lucky charm, or a lucky person.

Koi in Japan

The koi was bred into the coloured fish we know in Japan over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There it stands for courage and strength: the carp that swims upstream does not give up. Carp-shaped streamers, koinobori, fly outside homes in spring for exactly that reason.

Do the colours mean something?

Modern guides, especially for tattoos, give each colour a meaning — gold for wealth, red for love, black for overcoming difficulty. These meanings are recent and vary from source to source. The old meaning is the same for every colour: perseverance, and the luck that follows it.

Koi fish gifts

Because the koi stands for effort rewarded, it is a natural gift for:

• a new job or a promotion
• an exam, a degree or a graduation
• a new business or a move
• Lunar New Year, when fish symbols are everywhere
• anyone going through a hard year who needs a reminder that the waterfall can be cleared

A small, lasting object suits the meaning better than a big one: something to keep on a desk, in a pocket or on a shelf.