The Chinese Red Green Show

It seems that many of my post titles now have references to other, existing objects.  This is simply a lack of originality on my part.  This post is not about the incredibly funny Red Green Show.

I went by a workmate's computer while he was watching a stock screen.  You know these screens, they're the ones with lots of stock symbols all over and they are colored red (down) or green (up) depending on the movement of the stock price that day.  The screen had a lot of red so I just said, "Wow, looks like a bad day for the market."  He looked at me, puzzled. "What do you mean?  Everything is up today.  It's great!"

I have rarely felt so puzzled.  Would you believe that the red/green meanings are reversed in China?  Since red is the color of fortune and happiness, when stocks go up, they're red and when they go down, they're green.  I never would have figured it out myself.

I got to apply this knowledge right away.  That very night, I went to the Hong Ba in Nan Luo Gu Xiang.  Great little bar.  One their "things" is that each sitting booth is elevated 2-3 feet above the main floor.  There is a tiny "lift" for each booth to raise the patrons up to the table and seats.  

First time there, one of us got on the lift and we saw one red button and one green button.  Naturally, to go up, we pressed the green one.  Nothing happened.  After a 3 second delay (I'm not the sharpest person), I yelled, "Oh!  I know this!  Push the red one."  Sure enough, red means up and green means down.