Colours in South Korea and Japan

Supporters of the national football team are called the Red Devils. During the 2002 World Cup, crowds in red shirts filled the streets of Seoul.

The national flag carries a red and blue circle, the taegeuk. Red is the positive force and blue the negative, the two in balance, on a white ground that stands for peace and purity.

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.

Obangsaek is the set of five traditional colours: blue, red, yellow, white and black, one for each direction and the centre. Yellow is the centre. Children's striped saekdong sleeves use the set.

In party politics the liberal Democratic Party campaigns in blue and the conservative People Power Party in red, the reverse of the usual left and right colours in Europe.

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.

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.

Koreans were long known as the white-clad people, because plain white hanbok was everyday dress for commoners well into the twentieth century.

At a traditional funeral the family wore pale, undyed hemp. Today mourners mostly wear black suits, but close relatives may still pin on a small white ribbon.

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.

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.