Ring In the Chinese New Year

Just as tacos and spaghetti add flavor to menu options outside Mexico and Italy, foreign holidays and customs can introduce the world's children to interesting new activities.
Unfortunately, in January, 2020, the Chinese New Year introduced the world to COVID-19. Millions of people traveling for the lunar new year began carrying the new virus around the world.
     With what the Chinese call the Year of the Pig about to give way to the beginning of the Chinese New Year of the Metal Rat on January 25, 2020, children could have been urging adults to try making some Feng Shui modifications said to attract good luck. But by opening doors and windows for 10 minutes on the eve of the Chinese New Year, this year they let the old year out and a new virus in.

     Since the Chinese associate rats with storing up food, some customs in the Year of the Rat involve saving money. Placing a glass or ceramic bowl at the front door serves as a reminder to deposit and save all loose change there every time anyone enters all year. On the other hand, all are cautioned; lending anyone money on New Year's Eve can cause a loss of money all year long.

     To start the new year with abundance, the Chinese prepare a tray with eight kinds of snacks, including round fruits like grapes that symbolize prosperity, orange slices for gold, olives, pecans, almonds and various round candies and cookies. To foster optimism and energy, the Chinese start the new year wearing the warm colors of red, orange, and yellow.

     You'll also want to clean your home before the new year begins, because using brooms, brushes, and dust rags might clear away good fortune. Also, avoid using knives and scissors that can cut off good luck.

     Instead of trying to keep New Year's resolutions, everyone might try the Chinese method of writing nine new year's wishes on rectangular pieces of paper and hanging them on a tree where the wind can blow them into the sky for fast fulfillment.

     New Yorkers counted down the beginning of 2020 while watching a crystal ball drop in Times Square and blowing horns. Instead, some Chinese will ring in the new year with a Tibetan bell.  

     Children born in the Year of the Metal Rat are expected to be able to turn unlucky events into fortunes. All children around the world will be able to begin the Chinese New Year with a small fortune, if adults adopt the Chinese custom of giving them coins in red envelopes.

Could Colors Calm Our World?

Some colors elicit a positive response by humans living in today's culture. The creative company, The Brave New Now, reached this conclusion, while working on the Ven complex housing convention space, a hotel, 50 apartments, stores, a fitness center and spa, juice bar, and rooftop restaurant at the Sloterdijk rail station in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

     When you visit the Ven Amsterdam site, you see the complex uses several colors together in the same space. Why?

     Orange: Found to boost creative performance, increase endurance, and maintain motivation and a positive attitude during tough moments.
   
     Blue: Found to enable a person to take control of a situation, focus on details, remain calm and combat stress.

     Purple: Found to inspire intellectual thoughts, stimulate imagination, and arouse responses to creative concepts.

     Hotel guests at the Ven complex will be able to choose rooms that are orange, blue, purple, or three other colors:

     Yellow: Found to promote a feeling of happiness and optimism, to boost memory, clarify thought, and improve decision making.

     Green: Found to help renew and restore depleted energy, improve efficiency, and calm.

     Pink: A very interesting finding. Females lifting weights in a room painted pink gained the strength to lift heavier weights. Pink power helped energy levels and confidence soar.

     Women negotiating in a sunny glen by the sea with glasses of orange juice or grape juice in their hands may be just what the world needs.

(You might also like to get colorful ideas from the earlier post, "Car Companies Match Colors to Country Moods" and from Harald Arnkil's book, Colours in the Visual World.)




     

Car Companies Match Colors to Country Moods

Automobile companies don't throw darts at color wheels to choose the shades to paint new cars. They turn to BASF (Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik) to spot the global trends and regional differences they match with the German company's technical ability to mix pigments and create new coatings. Looking ahead to 2018, BASF expects blue to be a hot color in the North American market. Not only is it calming, but it reflects a growing need to be connected to others and a community.

     Paul Czornij, head of design at BASF's Color Excellence Group, sees dual forces pulling at drivers in the global market and finds color shifting metallics an excellent way to express conflict. Metallic blues capture the tension between a car owner's emphasis on authentic self-expression and a fascination with the virtual world.

    In 2016,  BASF travelers in North America picked up a can-do, no-excuse determination to master the complex challenges of change. They considered combining two or more colors with metallics as a way to reflect this attitude and developed:

• Raingarden: Like a multipurpose smartphone serving as secretary, personal trainer, and medical monitor, this coating enables a soft metallic silver to appear subtly bluish or greenish depending on a viewer's angle.
• Primordial soup: Instead of a vague greenish-brown, Czornij connected primordial soup with the movie, music, and other personal preferences at the heart of an individual. Heart as seen by BASF colorists equals a deep, blood red color.
• Aerialist wish: A black which is silvery and mysterious is designed to capture the life young artists, designers, musicians, and professionals are bringing back to once undesirable downtown city centers.

     In Europe, black and deep red and green hues address a driver's need to hang onto a traditional identity and experience while trying to adapt to digital progress.

     In contrast, fresh light colors reflect the Asian-Pacific market's confidence in the future and traditional elegance. A sand beige metallic color and playful blue-greens are used to reveal optimism.

     Look at what you choose to wear today. What do the colors say about your mood?