2011 SU Update: Culture Shock, Day Nine

SHENZHEN – We like to think that, despite the cultural and linguistic differences that exist beyond every border, some things are universal.

The words ‘taxi’, ‘hotel’, ‘toilet’ are something members of any culture can understand. The same goes for the general meanings of the colors. Or so we believed.

It’s not something we consciously think about, but when we see a door marked green and one marked red, we go through the green one. We expect the red door to be locked, forbidden or for ‘authorized personnel’ only. To put it simply, red means stop, green means go. We even have the traffic lights to prove it.

But if these last nine days have taught us anything, it’s that the Chinese look at things from a different angle. I’ll even go as far as to say upside down. Or it’s us looking at things upside down, depending on your point of view.

Their stop signs are red, their traffic lights stick to the same color systems everybody else’s do, but that’s where the universality stops.

The first signs of something being a bit off can be seen on the subway. The Shenzhen metro is as modern and organized as the city itself. There is an electronic map of the line and each stop lights up as you stop and pass it. Just like in any other big city, right? Not exactly.

However good your sense of direction may be, it can take you a while to figure out which way you’re going and where the stop you need is. And it’s not because they’re all in Chinese, either.

It’s because the direction of the train is red, and the stops that are yet to come green. While it may even sound logical on paper, the mind gets instantly confused.  A conversation between Brazilian delegates overheard on the metro went something along the lines of:

‘Are you sure we’re going the right way? Because it looks like our stop is in the other direction.’

‘Don’t worry this is the right way, we’re red, not green.’

‘We’re red?!’

It’s exactly the same conversation I had with myself a couple of days earlier, when I had taken the metro for the first time.

There is also another example, this one connected directly to sport. The scoreboard at basketball games is very helpful. It shows each player’s name, number of points and fouls and whether their on the court or bench.

The players on the court, of course, are red. The ones on the bench green. That one took a couple of minutes to process too.

What our culture and colors tell us is ‘we are green’ and ‘green means in’.  In China everything says ‘we are red’. And while it might confuse us, culturally, historically and politically, it makes perfect sense.

(Source: Sonja Nikcevic, FISU-AIPS Young Journalist/Serbia)