Colors in relation to culture (Chinese basics S2 EP11) | traditions | objects in everyday life

Welcome back to the second season of Chinese with Jiayi, The Language Basics. In this episode, I'm going to introduce you to six colors and their deep relations to the culture. Let's get started. 色 Color 色 红色 Red color 红色 我们很喜欢红色 We like red color very much. In the Chinese culture, 红色 is the color of happiness, joy, and good fortune. We use 红色 a lot, especially now during the Spring Festival and at traditional Chinese weddings. 春节 Spring Festival 春节 One tradition during this time is that the adults will give children this. What we call 红包 with money inside as the best wishes. 包 literally means bag or package in general. This symbol is everywhere in a traditional wedding. From the dresses to decorations, from invitation to the candy boxes. Can you see what it is? 喜 and 喜 As a verb, we learned that 喜 means to like. And as a noun or adjective, it means happiness or happy. To express people's best wishes to the newlyweds, this was created. Double happiness. 绿色 Green color 绿色 绿色 is the color of health. Many food and drinks are made from plants. Like 绿茶, green tea. 绿茶 Some desserts are made of green bean. 绿豆, green bean. 绿豆 Some food are wrapped up in green leaves before cooking in order to get a flavor. 绿叶, green leaf. 绿叶 In some regions, people cook rice in tubes of bamboo. 竹, bamboo. 竹 黑色, black color. 黑色 白色, white color. 白色 Apart from 阴 and 阳, 黑色 and 白色 in two halves, these two colors are also associated with one art form that dates back thousands of years. Brush painting. Basically, the artist just used two color materials. 水, water. 水 and 墨, black ink. 墨 As you can see, 墨 is made up of two characters. 黑 at the top and the other character 土 at the bottom. And literally that means something black from the earth. Because of that, we also call this kind of art form 水墨. And artists create various subjects like 山水, mountains and water. 山水 花, flowers. 花 or animals like 虎, tiger. 虎 鸟, birds. 鸟 and 鱼, fish. 鱼 and so on. 蓝色, blue color. 蓝色 There are two things that makes 蓝色 very special to us. They have been manufactured since centuries and they're still being used in our lives. One is the Chinese porcelain with blue and white pattern. 紫, porcelain. They're made of bowls and plates so that we can use them in the kitchen or serve food to the dining table. 碗, bowl. 盘, plate. 盘 And many other things too. The other is the cotton fabric with white patterns on blue. 布, fabric. 布 We use 布 to make clothing. 衣, shoes. 鞋 or umbrellas. 傘 These are just names in general. To be precise, we could add other characters. In this case, 雨, raincoat. 雨衣, 雨鞋, rain boots. 雨鞋, 雨伞, rain umbrella. 雨伞, 黄色, yellow color. 黄色 Yellow has been historically associated with royalty and power. The character for the emperor, 黄, is pronounced the same as the color. In some dynasties, only the emperors were allowed to wear yellow garments and yellow was reserved for imperial use in architecture, clothing, and ceremonies. Now let me test you a bit. I'm going to give you some colors and then you tell me what they are in Chinese, okay? 黄色 白色 绿色 蓝色 黑色 红色 That's all for this episode. Here's a question for you. How are you going to type the character 绿 into devices of computer and mobile phones? I'm going to tell you the answers in the next episode. For now, relax, enjoy writing. 谢谢 再见