Colours in Peru and Japan

The flag is red, white and red. A well-known legend says Jose de San Martin chose the colours after seeing a flock of flamingos with red wings and white breasts.

Andean weavers have dyed alpaca and cotton with cochineal for well over a thousand years. Peru is today the world's largest producer of the dye.

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.

On New Year's Eve, street stalls in Lima sell yellow underwear, yellow flowers and yellow paper garlands. Wearing yellow at midnight is held to bring good luck.

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.

October is the purple month. Followers of the Lord of Miracles, a painting of Christ in Lima, wear purple habits with a white cord all month and walk in vast processions.

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.

The national football team wears a white shirt with a red sash from shoulder to hip, and is called the Blanquirroja, the white and red.

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.

For the Incas gold was the sweat of the sun and silver the tears of the moon. Both were kept for the gods and the ruler, not used as money.