Contributor record · Wave 1, July to August 2026
Contributor CA-01
Chinese-Canadian; raised in Canada. Interviewed for 29 minutes (Recorded video interview, Mandarin and English; rating card written by hand and sent as a photo). Favorite color: Blue or green; for years she assumed it was yellow. Deep-dive colors this session: Red, Pink, Green.
Dublin Core record
- Identifier
- CTP-CA-01
- Title
- Interview with contributor CA-01
- Type
- Oral-history interview with rating card
- Creator
- Chloe Chen, interviewer and curator
- Contributor
- CA-01; attribution to be confirmed in writing
- Date
- Wave 1, July to August 2026
- Language
- cmn (Mandarin); eng (English)
- Format
- Recorded video interview, Mandarin and English; 29 min
- Coverage
- Chinese-Canadian; raised in Canada
- Subject
- Color meaning; deep dive: Red, Pink, Green
- Relation
- Color records GCMD-001 to GCMD-006; wave 1 dataset
- Rights
- Record text CC BY 4.0; consent given on the recording
- Access
- Public tier: this record. Private tier: name key, recording, card scan, transcript
First associations
Quick-fire round| Red | the Canadian flag |
| Blue | the swimming pool |
| Green | the forest |
| Yellow | vitality; the old Warriors home colors |
| Black | steady and silent |
| Pink | it's not for me |
In their words
From the recordingIn school performances I would be dressed in pink. It was never something I chose.On pink, translated from the recording
In business, formal, or educational settings pink reads as too casual, too expressive. It is not taken seriously.On pink, translated from the recording
China loves the deep red of its own flag. The red of the Canadian flag leans a little orange and reads less intense.On red, translated from the recording
As a kid at my grandmother's I wrapped my hair in a big towel after a shower, like an American TV heroine. The elders said white must not be worn on the head. I still do it anyway.On black, translated from the recording
Sayings contributed
Romanized, with literal translation- hong hong huo huo, translated in the interview word for word: red red fire fire
- fen mo deng chang: powder and ink take the stage, where the powder is stage makeup rather than the color pink
- da hong da zi: great red, great purple, the idiom for peak success
- green hand: a novice, contributed in English
On color in film
The curator's own questionHarry Potter, read from inside Slytherin: the red house is upright, sincere, direct; the green house is cool-headed and indirect, and she rejects the villain reading of it.
Generational note
Would the grandparents answer differently?Her grandparents' answers would be very different: red would dominate, and the rest of their world she pictures in gray.
Luck, taboo, belief
Custom versus convictionRed and purple are called lucky (da hong da zi); white on the head is the taboo she was actually scolded for. She believes none of it and wraps the towel anyway. At home green also carries stock-market bad luck, since the Chinese market falls in green.
Rating card
Five scales, six colors| Color | Like to dislike | Calm to energetic | Traditional to modern | Positive to negative | Strength of cultural meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | 4† | 6 | 2† | 4 | 7† |
| Blue | 1 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Green | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 7 |
| Yellow | 2 | ·† | ·† | 2 | 4 |
| Black | 3 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Pink | 7 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 2 |
- Red Q1: overwritten digit on the card; read as 4
- Red Q3: read as 2; the figure is written in a looping hand
- Red Q5: read as 7
- Yellow Q2: crossed out on the card and not rewritten; treated as missing
- Yellow Q3: recorded at both ends (6 and 1): she reads yellow as traditional and modern at once; excluded from means
Contribution to the protocol
Method feedbackSuggested two revisions the protocol has adopted: ask how a person's color perception has changed across life stages, and ask which color someone refuses outright and what that refusal brings to mind.
Cite this interview
Stable ID CTP-CA-01Contributor CA-01, interview by Chloe Chen, July to August 2026 (CTP-CA-01). The Color Testimony Project, wave 1, Global Color Meaning Database (Suse), 2026. Accessed [date]. https://globalcolormeaning.org/fieldwork/ca-01.html.
The identifier CTP-CA-01 is permanent. The citation form follows the oral-history practice documented on the standards page; the exact date of the session is held in the private log and can be supplied to a researcher on request.
Quotes are transcribed from the recording, translated into English by the curator, and lightly cleaned for readability; the original-language transcript is held in the private tier. Short form: Contributor CA-01, interview, summer 2026. The contributor's name and consent record live in the private log, not in this archive.