Colours in Jordan and Japan

The red and white checked headcloth, the shemagh, is a mark of Jordanian identity. It was the headdress of the desert patrol and is worn with a black cord.

The torii gates of Shinto shrines are often painted vermilion, a bright orange-red. The colour is held to keep evil away, and the long tunnels of gates at Fushimi Inari are the best known.

Indigo dyeing, called aizome, clothed ordinary people in deep blue through the Edo period. The men's national football team plays in blue and is nicknamed Samurai Blue.

Purple dye from the murasaki plant was costly and hard to make. In the court rank system set up under Prince Shotoku, the highest officials wore purple caps.

Petra, carved into sandstone cliffs by the Nabataeans, is known as the rose-red city, from a line in a nineteenth-century English poem.

Pale pink is the colour of cherry blossom. In spring people picnic under the trees for hanami, flower viewing, and the short bloom is a common image for how brief life is.

A bride at a Shinto wedding may wear the shiromuku, a kimono that is white from head to foot. White is also the colour of the paper streamers that mark sacred places.

Red and white together, called kohaku, mark happy occasions. Curtains at ceremonies are striped red and white, and the New Year's Eve song contest sets a Red team against a White team.

The flag's bands recall three caliphates: black for the Abbasids, white for the Umayyads and green for the Fatimids. The red triangle is for the Hashemites and the Arab Revolt.

Mourners wear plain black, called mofuku, to funerals, and men add a black tie. Condolence money goes in an envelope tied with black and white cord.