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CREATE conference 2010. Color Association in Chinese Culture. LEE, Tien – Rein Professor Chinese Culture University. Gjovik, Norway June, 11, 2010. What is color for?. What can color do for us?. How if color can help to improve our health?. How if color can help to
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CREATE conference 2010 Color Association in Chinese Culture LEE, Tien – Rein Professor Chinese Culture University Gjovik, Norway June, 11, 2010
How if color can help to improve our health?
How if color can help to increase our income for us?
Introduction • Throughout several thousand years of Chinese civilization, color has played a distinctive role in cultural and social life. • The Chinese society to a large extent relied on selected colors meant to be auspicious or otherwise directly influential to people’s lives and environment.
Introduction • The ancient Chinese saw 5-element Theory or Feng-shui not so much as the superstitious practice by itself, but as an integral part of the study of the natural and the pattern on it. • As one of the important doctrines of ancient Chinese culture, the 5-element Theory merges the wisdom and life experience of our ancestors; its character is of absolute practical use.
Introduction • Countless customs followed the concept of the “5-element Theory” as the basic traditional source of belief. • This unique standard color theory therefore represents an original piece of ancient Chinese wisdom using color interpretation for daily use.
Introduction • The term “color” in Chinese can be translated as “color in the face”, 顔色。Later, around 800 A.D. during the Tang Dynasty reign, the character became more generalized, then referring to all colors. There is also a Chinese idiom called “wu yan liu se” 五顔六色，meaning “all colors”.
Introduction • The “Theory of the 5-element” identifies five basic colors: Black, White, Blue-Green, Red and Yellow. Each of them is associated with one of the five substances Water, Metal, Fire, Earth and Wood.
Introduction • Colors therefore are closely connected to certain qualities according to the five elements (substances) which are said to have positive or negative effects. • This traditional Chinese understanding of colors and their influence on people’s lives has been applied by emperors throughout the ages, and can be linked to modern science, i.e. regarding color therapy.
Introduction • It presents not only cultural achievement but also provides research value in the fields of natural sciences. • Within currently prevailing evidence based research, this theory can be discussed by applying modern scientific methods, and it is entirely worth being probed.
Introduction • There are people who call it a kind of superstition, or mystic culture, not worth being examined. Yet if its structure and its implications can be categorized, and verified by objective methods, it means finding the true cultural source. • But integration of the age-old cultural wisdom with modern insight by employing ways of studying and extending –even assigning modern models of interpretation – shows that this theory offers even more meaningful knowledge and guidelines for peoples’ lives today.
Introduction • This presentation attempts to add, explore and explain topics of color according to the traditional 5-element Theory; besides, it tries its further development and application by confronting and integrating modernized color theory and related issues.
Introduction • Regarding traditional Chinese culture, the "Theory of Wind and Water” 「風水學」is the one best known among Westerners. • Its practical content doubtlessly includes Geology, Meteorology, Site Preservation, Architecture, from Physiology to Psychology; it ranges from observing everything from the sky to the earth, forming a complete theoretical foundation that leaves nearly nothing unsaid – all this can be allotted to the single basis of the 5-element Theory, corresponding to an analysis of the “10.000 Phenomena” and their respective relations.
The Five Arts and their spiritual practice • 山-- Mountain (self-cultivation and arts of transcendence - this includes visualisation, qigong, internal alchemy / neidan, talisman water) • 醫-- Medicine • 命-- Destiny - fortune-telling through Ba-tze (八字-8 characters) • 相-- Imaging: this can be face reading (physiognomy), feng-shui (geomancy), and astronomy/astrology. • 卜-- Divination: casting the I-jing (Book of change) etc.
Example for Wu-Xing using in Feng-shui and Medical treatment
