In the aspect of the worship of color, Chinese Han people have the customs of worshiping the red (called Chi in ancient China) and yellow. According to the record in the Book of Rites, people in Zhou Dynasty worshiped the red color. In ancient times, such customs had many expressions such as regarding the red birds as the auspicious birds, reputing dutiful people with kind heart as Chi Zi and calling the noble moral quality of absolutely sincerity as Chi Xin and so on. As time passes, the color Chi is gradually developed into the general red color we mean today.

Since Chinese Han people regard red color as the symbol of auspiciousness, happiness and beauty, they usually call the splendid costumes of women as Hong Zhuang, which was the indication of beautiful lady in ancient China. The culture of color is an important content in Chinese culture. Those ladies with beautiful appearance are regarded as Hong Yan and the room of the young married women as Hong Gui.

In addition, in the folk, Chinese people treat the red color as the symbol of revolution. If you are interested in Chinese history, you can see that many armies were named with the red color in the peasant uprisings such as Chi Mei Army, Hong Jing Army and Hong Ao Army and so on. The most familiar one should be the Red Army which was the workers and peasants’ army led by the Communist Party of China.

In the folk customs of Chinese Han people, especially the birthday ceremony and wedding, the red color is applied to decorate the environment to render the atmosphere. When you attend to Chinese school to study Mandarin, teachers would tell you that the red cloth should be hanged over the door if there is a new baby born in the family. Besides, the gifts for the birthday celebration should be tied with red cloth and the bride should wear the red dress. All in all, many happy things are related to the red color.

At the same time of worshiping the red color, Chinese people also think yellow is a noble color which is the noblest color in five colors, representing the central direction. Therefore, the emperors wore the yellow robe in ancient China. In the folk, the most typical example of respecting yellow should be the Yellow Turbans Uprising in the late of Eastern Han Dynasty.