Useful Things Help To Understand How Chinese Thinking（1）
The meaning of colours
Colours play an important part in superstitions and can influence what you decide to wear. White is the colour of death and plain white, e.g., as a dress, a suit, or shirt and trousers, tends to give the appearance of traditional mourning garments and so is best avoided. Would you respond quickly and warmly to someone dressed in the sombre garb of a traditional undertaker? It is quite acceptable to wear a white shirt or blouse, but it is best to team it with a suit or skirt of a different colour. Red is considered a very "happy" colour, so that a red tie with a white shirt, or red buttons on a white dress, offsets the death image. Writing in red ink however is a bad idea as it suggests the friendship is in danger.
Death might also be suggested in China by blue and white or blue and yellow together. At a traditional funeral, the gift of money would often be placed in a yellow envelope with a blue stripe, so this combination of colours is best avoided. Blue trousers and white shirt should be fine, but you might choose to avoid a heavy blue and white, or blue and yellow, striped tie for example.
Yellow on its own can be connected with death, although a darkish yellow was also associated with the emperors of history (only they were allowed to have yellow roofs on buildings) and also with some monks. Because of the different traditions, there is no real problem with wearing yellow, and it might give you a useful talking point.
A green hat should definitely be avoided, as in some parts of China it suggests a cuckolded person. There is a story that one senior foreign negotiator presented a green baseball cap with the company logo on it to each member of the team with which he had negotiated – and then wondered why no one was actually prepared to wear it!
Red is a particularly good or happy colour in much of Asia, including Japan and Korea as well as China. In certain areas, such as in the city of Chengdu, white bread loaves always have a splash of edible red dye on them to make them look more attractive. At first glance, it rather looks to a Westerner as if the baker must have cut himself! Wearing too much red can look a bit silly however. For foreign women, it might look excessive to wear a totally bright red dress with matching shoes and handbag. This is the sort of thing that little girls wear for very special celebrations, when they are adorned with heavy adult makeup.
Paintings and scrolls
Traditional scrolls and painting often featured a scene with mountains and streams with usually a tiny figure of a human, possibly fishing. This was a reflection of the Taoist (pronounced dow-ist) world view of the importance of nature, the insignificance of humans, and perhaps the Confucian idea of the importance of how people fit in. Certain elements in a painting may represent specific things; for instance the dragon represents the Emperor, the phoenix the Empress. Particular animals had strong symbolism attached to them (see Table 1.1 below)
The value of knowing about traditional beliefs
If you can comment on traditional views about the significance of numbers, colours, a painting, or an animal, it can impress the Chinese – it demonstrates you have a genuine interest in their culture. It can be most useful when socialising and casting around for good and safe topics of conversation. Understanding traditional culture can impress. I once witnessed an Australian trained in classical Chinese reading aloud the inscription on a temple wall in Chengdu, Sichuan. It immediately attracted an impressed crowd of locals, most of whom could not understand a word of it – modern Chinese characters are totally different.
