COLORASIA: things I’ve learned about color and culture during my Asia trip: Part 1.
A month ago, for the first time in my life, I visited Asia. Being based in Ukraine, Southeast Asia is a faraway land and the travel can be compared to the one from Westeros to Essos, the far side of the continent. Luckily, today you don’t need to take the antique ship and instead of long days on the road, I had only 1 train, 1 bus, 2 flights, one of which lasted for 12 hours. Simple.
Planning this adventure I decided to visit several places. As the result, the trip consisted of Singapore, Bangkok, Phuket and Hong Kong—3 countries that have different cultures, religion, and many other uniques features to discover.
While being a color lover, part of my impressions relate to its Majesty, the Color. Whether it’s nature, architecture, people’s clothes or ads, any colored surface around may give the message, and being in the new place I notice the different language it speaks.
The Lion City—Singapore
The first destination, from the Malay “Singa” for Lion and “Pura” for city, Singapore, brought an instant contrast—the high humidity. This aspect, as the result, is represented with the richness of flowers and trees, take a look!
While the temperature here is tropical and uniform the whole year, the nature blossom in full swing. Lots of flowers are on the streets and in the parks, the colors of the petals are various and intense, a feast for the eyes.
Another big difference of Singapore is its greenery approach—when someone constructs the new building, he has to replace the same greenery he replaced. Moreover, what I’ve heard from the locals I talked to, the new laws will even demand to cover most of the walls surface of all the buildings with greenery. Some of them already look incredibly good and I totally support this direction.
Being one of the most developed country in the world, Singapore can show you not only the districts with modern skyscrapers but also invites to see the old architecture. These buildings are rich in color and this approach, in a way, can be compared to the charming colorful old buildings I’ve met in Europe. The difference is in details, Singapore houses combine the elements from three cultures—Malay, British and Chinese.
OK, lots of greenery and flowers blossom, colorful old buildings, what else influences the overall perception and makes it look different from the surrounding I get used to?
Another big opening is the religion, the design of temples in particular. Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in Chinatown was the first temple on my way that amazed me. Entering it, I found myself in the space full of powerful red color as well as golden elements.
Perhaps, many of us know that red is one of the main colors in Chinese culture, which in turn, has a huge influence on many Asian territories. But when you perceive it in real life, the impressions are very strong. Traditionally, red symbolize luck and joy. I would add courage as well. It’s one of the Five Elements presenting fire.
Gold reflects, no surprise, wealth and God consciousness.
Oh, one more hint for designers visiting Singapore, pay attention on the metro—the simplicity of roots and line changes, the safety and organization of people flow going out and entering the vagon. Not to mention how convenient are the road maps inside and the fact that many trains don’t have the driver but automized!
I guess, such kind of differences you’ll start to notice from the first minutes in Singapore as Changi airport represents the most calm way I’ve ever experienced of passing the road to passport control zone. Exploring easy paths and interactions in the real life, the same skills are useful and required working on UX phase.
After several days in Singapore I’ve already started to think about the connection of people’s color perception and the surrounding they’re living at.
Ten Million City—Bangkok
The next destination was a new country, Thailand. Flying from Singapore to Bangkok the pilot said some phrase which I didn’t hear well, the only words I recognized were for your safety, prevent danger, attack. Hmm.
To be honest, Bangkok wasn’t love at first sight. It’s an extremely huge city with lots of cars, tuk-tuks and scooters on the road. Another word to describe the city is contrast. Luxurious rich temples stand right next to old districts and small houses, walking a bit further you see the skyscrapers—all these types of buildings are so different but you won’t find the separation.
I wasn’t ready to see such picture and it took me several days to learn the city and begin to understand it. Looking ahead, I really liked Bangkok with its surprising charms and definitely want to visit it once again. It’s a must-see destination, and here are the reasons.
Once again, the Buddhist temples were one of the key spots to visit. Colored faience and tiles shine and even blind you. The concentration of color per square meter is shocking! Let me know the masters who created it, I’d like to shake their hands in admiration!
From my perspective, using of bright color in architecture sometimes is determined by the fact that it will enrich the days when the weather is grey. Like in Stockholm or Copenhagen, where the half of the year there is a lack of sun lights and thus, the old buildings are warm and bright. In Bangkok, in its turn, rainy days isn’t a danger at all, I believe, and bold colors are used to show wealth and power. See, how color can influence the perception!
Not only the temples are bright. I’ve never seen before such intense colors of taxi cars! Can’t imagine seeing them in Ukraine, though it would be really fun. This visual message made me think again about where the color approach could come from. And while I didn’t find the one and only right answer, my assumption is that originally it comes from nature. There are the vast variety of flowers many of which are bright and intense. For instance, lotus—a sacred flower symbolizing purity and enlightenment, one of Buddhism’s most recognizable symbols.
When person gets used to see such colorful surrounding, it’s the most natural way for him to use bold, strong colors in everything human-created around.
At the same time, people living in more severe weather conditions create minimalistic design. One more time, I can mention Scandinavia as an example, and its world known aesthetic simplicity and functionalism. Could vikings imagine the success of this style back in centuries ago? Well, that’s the topic for a different article.
When it comes to sketching, sometimes I hear people saying “Your sketches are much brighter than the reality” and it’s true in cases when I sketch in Dnipro or during grey rainy days, I still want to find true colors. Sketching Bangkok, my love to bright colors looked quite natural.
Another interesting thing about Thailand I’ve discovered lately was the meaning of color in clothes. The last day in Bangkok I had a meeting with urban sketchers group and suddenly I realized many people are wearing yellow color. Why?
Turned out, it was the second anniversary of King Bhumibol Adulyadej death and wearing yellow, Thai royalty color, people tribute to their late king. Symbolic and accidentally, sketching Phaya Thai Palace I had a chance to visit the exhibition, dedicated to the king. Presented information interested me a lot and made me learn deeply the history of the country.
Back to the overall color meaning in Thailand I found that according to Buddhist traditions each day of the week is assigned a specific color. Yellow is for Monday, pink for Tuesday, green and grey for Wednesday day and night respectively, orange or brown for Thursday, light blue for Friday, purple for Saturday and, finally, red for Sunday — lucky colors. Also, the color of the day the person was born, is considered to be his color of success.
I couldn’t say I noticed many people wearing the same color in other days of staying in Thailand, but personally, I find this tradition really great and unique. After all, I’m a color lover and everything that is connected to color makes me excited.
The adventures were ahead and I continued my way to explore this country heading to Phuket. Once again, the views I observed during the flight, were gorgeous.
The following stories I will review in the next article. Stay tuned and keep on traveling as it’s one of the best things in the world that enrich you!
UPD. Here’s the second part:
