Colours in Ukraine and Japan

Traditional embroidered shirts, vyshyvanky, are most often stitched in red and black. A well-loved song says that red is for love and black is for sorrow.

The red berries of the viburnum, kalyna, are a national symbol. The song Oi u luzi chervona kalyna, the red viburnum in the meadow, became an anthem of resistance after 2022.

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.

In late 2004 crowds wearing orange filled Kyiv to protest against a rigged presidential election. The vote was rerun and the protests became known as the Orange Revolution.

The lower band of the flag is yellow, read as fields of ripe wheat under the sky. The two colours go back to the arms of Lviv and medieval Galicia.

At Pentecost, called the Green Holidays, homes and churches are decked with birch branches and sweet-smelling herbs spread on the floor.

The upper band of the flag is blue for the sky. Since 2022 buildings around the world have been lit in blue and yellow in support of the country.

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.

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.

A red and black flag was used by the wartime Ukrainian Insurgent Army. It is seen at nationalist marches and is disputed because of the army's record.

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.