@echo,

I never cease to be amazed at the stories I hear about Chinese words！

Stories like this make learning Chinese so interesting. My favorite is

the story of 矛盾。

@蓝大卫，

不客气！

I have looked into it and found that there are four or five different stories behind "绿帽子“. There is a very popular version : Long long ago, there was a Business man who had a very beautiful wife. The husband always left home for his business, and the wife had a affair with a cloth seller on the street. One day, the husband almost caught them when he came back home. So the wife thought of an idea -- she made a green hat for her husband and told him to wear it whenever he had a business trip. So every time when the husband wore that hat and walked on the street, the cloth seller would know it was the time for him to go to see the woman.

--Echo

BTW, @echo.

I was remiss in the last post to say 谢谢！我很感谢

@echo,

Oh, yes, we have a similar idiom for white:

"He turned as white as a ghost" would be a way to express great fear.

I understand that the term "wears a green hat" in China means that a man's wife is having an affair.

What is the story behind this? I imagine it has to be interesting.

@蓝大卫，

Yes, we have similar expressions too. Such as:

他气得脸都绿了。Ta1 qi4de5 lian3 dou1 lv4 le5. -- He's so angry that his face turned green.

他吓得脸色发白。Ta1 xia4de5 lian3se4 fa1 bai2. -- He's so scared that his face turned white.

他看着有钱人眼红。 Ta1 kan4zhe5 bie2ren2 de5 qian2 yan3hong2. -- He's jealous of those rich people.

I think we don't have many positive ways too.

--Echo

I thought of some colors used in a positive way:

The Golden Rule.

"Behind every cloud there is a silver lining."

Do Chinese associate emotions to colors?

Here are some English examples:

"He was so angry it made him see red".

"He turned green with envy".

"He was so angry he turned purple".

If someone is sad, we may say that that person is "blue".

"Don't you make my brown eyes blue." (Taken from a popular song.)

If someone is cowardly, the color yellow is used:

"You yellow bellied coward!" or "He has a yellow streak down his back."

I cannot think of any positive emotions that we associate with colors.

@zhouli: Thanks. I was hoping that what I wrote made sense since it makes sense in English.

@lmcjipo,

yeah, it makes sense. jīnsè金色。

我也喜欢绿色。圣诞节快乐！:grin: