Colours in Pakistan and Japan

Brides most often marry in red, usually a heavily embroidered lehenga or gharara. The night before, the mehndi ceremony stains their hands with deep red-brown henna.

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.

Basant, the spring kite festival of Lahore and the Punjab, is marked with yellow clothes, the colour of the mustard fields in flower.

The dark green of the flag stands for the Muslim majority. The crescent on it is for progress and the star for light and knowledge.

The national cricket team plays in green and is known as the Green Shirts or the Men in Green. Fans paint their faces green and white for big matches.

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.

The white stripe at the hoist of the flag stands for the country's religious minorities. Together the green and white are the national colours.

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.

In the month of Muharram, Shia Muslims dress in black to mourn the death of Husayn ibn Ali at Karbala, and black banners hang over the streets.

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.