Green is a very vibrant color, when spring comes, the earth is revived, full of green, so green has also been given the "color of life", like in the Western world, green is a very popular color, and even many traditional aristocrats will take green as the main color of their families, used in flags, badges or clothing.
But in contrast to our East, although green also represents spring, full of vitality, but in terms of personal preferences, it is really worse than the West, the most typical is when the spouse or lover empathizes with each other, people often say "this person is green", or on top of the "green hat" and so on, just like this, in our country, green has become a "symbol of derailment".
Have you ever thought about a question: Why is this symbol given to green? Why did the ancients look down on this color?
Image: Stills of a green hat
First, what kind of color is green?
1. Ancient "positive color"
Through the excavation of various ancient crafts, it is not difficult to find that the ancients learned the concept of "three primary colors" at a very early age, that is, red, yellow and blue, plus the most commonly used black and white, so the earliest "positive color" system was formed.
The other colors used in various occasions are also mixed and modulated by the above colors, which are called "intercolor", which is popularly said to be the meaning of "variegated". In the traditional thinking of the ancients, "positive color" was regarded as a symbol of nobility, and only people with a certain social status could use it.
In the field of traditional culture, "positive color" is not casually used, only the five elements of "gold, wood, water, fire and earth" represent and correspond to the five positive colors, so the rulers of successive dynasties will use the five positive colors to represent their political power in order to prove the legitimacy of their political power, which is the famous "five virtues and the beginning theory" in history.
For example, the Qin Dynasty was crowned with water virtue, and after the Han Dynasty destroyed the Qin, it called itself Tude, and the theory quoted was the "Tuke Water" in the Five Elements Theory, and the corresponding positive color of the soil was yellow, so yellow became the admired color of the Han Dynasty for four hundred years.
Image: Stills of the dragon robe, which is mainly yellow
2. The meaning of green in society
So how did the ancients understand green from the source? To put it simply, green is considered to be a color between "pale yellow", of which "cang" is the color of the blue sky, which is mixed with the yellow that represents the land, and there is green, so it is identified as a "no up", "improper status" color, which belongs to one of the humble colors.
For example, in the Song Dynasty classic "Guangyun", green is recorded as "blue and yellow", saying that from the pre-Qin era, the ancient remnants did not look at this color too much. There is a sentence in the "Book of Verses and Green Clothes": "Green clothes and yellow clothes, the heart is worried", which basically means that the top is green and the bottom is yellow, so it is easy to feel sad in the heart.
In this regard, some scholars explained: "The ancients generally used yellow as the color of the tunic and green as the color of the bottom, and in the "Book of Poetry" this law was completely reversed, and it was transposed from top to bottom, and the nobles were inverted, which was like the original wife who lost her position and let the concubines with low status succeed in ascending to the throne, so they would feel sad in their hearts."
From here, it is not difficult to see that green was a color used by low-ranking people for a long time in ancient times, with the attribute of "lowly". Coincidentally, according to ancient records, in the Spring and Autumn Period, people who sold their wives and daughters to live had to wrap a green turban on their heads to show that they were lowly people.
Picture: Stills of a man dressed in green
Second, the in-depth influence of color in the feudal era
1. A powerful impact on culture
The Sui and Tang dynasties were the peak stage of the development of China's feudal era, especially in politics, and also determined the system of official grade clothing, that is, officials at different levels had their own official uniforms of that level, and their colors were fixed, and could not be replaced and used at will.
In this hierarchy, green also appeared in the color of official uniforms, but all of them were used by officials of lower rank. During the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, the Records of Feng's Observations and Stories recorded that Yanling ordered Li Feng not to use traditional military punishment for officials who committed crimes, but to wrap green turbans around their heads as a sign of humiliation.
Photo: Officials wearing green official residence photos
If the mistake is serious, the time for the green turban to be wrapped will be extended accordingly, and if a minor mistake is made, the time of wrapping and wearing is shorter, so in the official and folk of the Sui and Tang dynasties, "wearing a green turban" is also considered a kind of disciplinary measure, with a strong sense of humiliation.
Time entered the Yuan Dynasty, green is more considered to be the most "despicable" color in color, and our folk often say "green hat" also appeared in this period. According to the YuanDian Zhang, in the fifth year of the Yuan dynasty, that is, in 1268 AD, the Province of Zhunzhongshu issued a directive requiring all the men in the homes of prostitutes in the world to be wrapped in turbans of turbans.
Image: Screenshot of data wrapped in a green turban
2, the emergence of "green hats"
Judging from this decree issued by the yuan dynasty court, as long as the woman in the family is a prostitute outside, then the men in her family, no matter how old they are, and no matter what the relationship with the woman, must wear a green turban, which makes the green turban become the "exclusive" clothing of the prostitute family.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, in fact, green was not taken out of the "humble color", the Ming Dynasty stipulated that all the groups of people engaged in singing, opera, and performance must wear green turbans, which is not the end, and even requires their clothing color to become green.
It should be known that in traditional society, the "merchants" in the scholars, farmers, industrialists and merchants are already the lowest level of society, while entertainment practitioners are classified as the "lower nine streams" who are lower than the merchants. The ming dynasty law directly made the use of green clothing in "special industries" a fixed situation, which made people naturally think that wearing green clothes was an insult.
Image: Stills of a woman going out on an outing
Since the men in the homes of prostitutes in ancient times needed to wear green headscarves, and prostitutes were mostly related to illegal acts such as prostitution, people slowly believed that the green turban was a symbol and symbol of women in the family who were out and about with others.
Although posterity no longer wears a green turban, but there is still the habit of wearing a hat, the term "green hat" has gradually become popular, and it is generally considered to be synonymous with female infidelity. Of course, this matter is also the wisdom of the benevolent.
Article author: Dahui
The entire graphic was produced by the team of the Big Cafe Say History Studio!