Monday, November 29, 2010

A whole lotta pink

Pink for sale, Lotus Market, Chengdu
Another picture from the Lotus wholesale market in Chengdu. And yes, pink is a girly girl color over here in China as well.

Incidentally, did you know that in the late 1800s in the US, pink was used for boys and light powder blue was considered a girls' color? As a shade of red, pink had the meaning of energetic, healthy, and powerful - as in the phrase "in the pink" - and therefore masculine. Meanwhile, blue was considered to be a more docile, relaxed, and melancholic, with more feminine overtones.

The original meanings, if my memory serves, faded around the turn of the century, and our current system of pink for girls and blue for boys started to catch on in the twenties and thirties. Anyway, that's what I remember from an incredibly interesting article that I read once and am too lazy to look up at the moment... (Would somebody care to Google it for me and get back to me with the results?)

1 comment:

  1. In Warsaw, Poland, in 1971, the color for baby boys was pink, and blue was for girls. Don't know if that has changed.

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