The Color Matters --- Red in Chinese Culture (1)

Probably you have heard Chinese red in news of various international occasions. It not only has material representations (red clothes, red china, red decoration etc.), but also has spiritual and emotional reflections. Here in the following two blogs we are going to discuss the origin of Red element in Chinese Culture, and some of the common red element in the daily life.

Based on various archaeological evidences, worshiping red was quite common globally in primitive era, as red represents fire, sun and blood. Sun comes with warm and light, and it is the driving energy powers everything. As you know, worshiping Sun was well shared among different continents in pre-history. Similar to worshiping sun, fire can not only bring light, warm, and cooked food, but also retreat and defeat wild animals in primitive times. There were quite a few recorded ancient religions worshiping fire. In ancient China, one of the pioneering Emperors was called Flame Emperor, and he is worshiped as god of fire even now in some places of China. Blood is red, and blood means life, and blood worship was directly related with human's respect to life. In Eskimo language, RED is the direct translation of blood-like. Archaeological findings in Zhoukoudian China (Upper Cave Man Archaeological Sites) show that hematite (red color when oxidized) was applied around the deceased. There are so many forms of blood worship, including the well-known blood sacrifice. Aside from those worship origins, red is also found in the form of ancient cave’s wall paintings, and quite some red potteries were discovered in China.

Dawenkou red pottery 

However, red wasn’t always the official favorite color since the very beginning in Chinese Culture. Actually, red, white, black, cyan and yellow were once promoted and adored in different times in Chinese history. The favorite or the main stream color was changed with the changes of the regime through time. For instance, cyan was popular in Xia Dynasty. When Shang Regime replaced Xia, they promoted white, and Zhou Dynasty adored Red after that. Basically, every Regime in Chinese history had their own favorite color, officially or unofficially, one of main reason is the new regime would need to select a new color to overcome the main stream color in the previous regime, based on the Wu Xing Theory and Yinyang.

Color in Wuhang and Yinhang Theory

Table of main stream colors in each of the main historical regimes in Chinese history is compiled as below; you can find the source of the time span and more details in here.

Regime			Time	Main stream Color
Xia			BC 2070—BC 1600	Cyan
Shang			BC 1600—BC 1046	White
Zhou		Western Zhou	BC 1046—BC 771	Red
		Eastern Zhou Spring and Autumn Warring States	BC 770— BC 256 BC 770— BC 476 BC 475— BC 221
Qin			BC 221— BC 206	Black
Han		Western Han	BC 206—AD 23	Yellow
		Eastern Han	25—220	Red
Three Nations		Wei	220-265	Yellow
		Shu	221-263
		Wu	222-280
Western Jin			265-316	White
Eastern Jin and Sixteen States		Eastern Jin	317-420
		Sixteen States	304-439
South and North States	South States	Song	420-479	Black
		Qi	479-502	Cyan
		Liang	502-557	Cyan
		Chen	557-589	Red
	North States	Northern Wei	386-534
		Eastern Wei	534-550
		North Qi	550-577
		Western Wei	535-556
		Northern Zhou	557-581
Sui			581-618	Red
Tang			618-907	Yellow
Five Generations Ten States		Post Liang	907-923
		Post Tang	923-936
		Post Jin	936-946
		Post Han	947-950
		Post Zhou	951-960
		Ten States	902-979
Song		North Song	960-1127	Red
		South Song	1127-1279
Liao			916-1125
Western Xia			1038-1227
Jin			1115-1234
Yuan			1271-1368	White
Ming			1368-1644	Red
Qing			1644-1911	Black
Republic of China			1912-1949
PRC			1949-	Red

Qin dynasty was the first one to connect color to the national politics. After unifying all states under his rule, First Emperor of Qin (or Qin Shi Huang) set rules to unify words, measurement, laws and regulation, and also clothing rules etc., among them the color Black was deemed as noble color. The historical records suggested that Zhou dynasty before Qin used red and belong to Fire of Wu Xing theory, so in order to reflect Qin conquered Zhou in all aspects; they used Black, which belongs to Water in Wu Xing, as the mainstream color and embedded in political practices, as water kills fire. 

Thus, the recent official recognition of red in China is not really started until the middle of 20th Century, when the new China, The People's Republic of China was established. The red color on the national flag and the CPC symbolizes the blood shed by the evolutionary pioneers on the way to break the old society and fight the war. 

Chinese Flag

CPC flag

Red is also the color featuring Chinese Culture Revolution, and Red was a code name for China and socialism countries during era of Cold War given by its western friends. This is a photo from a restaurant featuring color from Great Leap Forward time.

Restaurant featuring color from Great Leap Forward time

There are some posters from that time, 

Chinese Red Poster 

By the way, do you realize that there are some other countries adore red. ENGLISH ADORES RED as well. Red telephone booth, red uniform of royal Queen's Guard, red houses such and such... 

(Most of the images are sourced from the internet, please contact me if there is a violation of the copyright.)

In the next blog, we are going to continue this discussion into the applications of red color in Chinese daily life...