How green?
SUPERGREEN!
Well No. Actually.
Blue.
It’s one of the small things that keeps popping up in conversations regarding Japan.
I have mentioned before that some of the culture just sorta gets assimilated into yourself and you don’t really think about it anymore ’till it somehow comes up in conversation. And then, because you haven’t been thinking about it you don’t know how to present easy proof of your claims.
Traffic lights are a good example.
Pretty much all the countries I have been to have the same colour scheme.
Red
Yellow
Green
Though the yellow is largely the same it is called orange in some countries.
See? Pretty much the same as they look where you’re reading this.
Not the Japanese though. The Japanese have Red-Yellow and BLUE lights.
Now, some of the people that read this have been to Japan.
These people may frown.
This, is a Japanese traffic light
Blue right?
OK, OK, I know I’m the colour blind one but that is definitely blue.
Blue as the grass.
Blue as the trees.
You see, the Japanese were not confronted with the concept “green” until after WWII. 青 (blue and green) was all they had and all they needed. The sea was blue, the sky was blue and so was the grass.
With the American occupation post WWII the concept of green was introduced and with it came both 緑 (green) and グリーン (guriin (Japanese phonetic green)). Actually 緑 had been around a while but it came into its own as a real colour instead of a shade of 青. And with the definition of green being in place 青 became just blue. Well. Mostly so as you can see.
Now, for those of you that remember my post regarding counting, you will remember the Japanese will count things differently depending on what it is one is counting. With colours it is much the same. A T-shirt with the colour of the go-signal on a traffic light will be 緑 whereas the traffic lights will continue to tell us that “信号機は青くなった” or “The traffic light has become blue”
For those of you of little faith btw.
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Quote of the day:
Everything you learn in Engineering school is obsolete by the time you finish. Except abstract math, and that you will never use
- Raphaelle