SEMINAR: Asian Studies Seminar Series

Cultural traditions in China go back 7,000 years. With that long history, and in such a large country, colours have accumulated a great richness of meanings. Meanings can be subtly different in different parts of the country and in different strata of society. And the meanings of colours in China can be quite different from those in the West. Traditions were all but destroyed during the Cultural Revolution as new layers of meaning were added. Today China faces the new challenges of preserving traditions in a market economy and dealing with the forces of globalisation. This paper will describe how the meanings of colours evolved in different eras of Chinese history and will analyse their use in different spaces, including architecture, graphic design and ceremonies.