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Royal Yellow: The Meaning of Colors in Thai Culture
By _Kim Si-eun, CEO of ASEAN Lab

While watching the Thai-Korean film The Medium, released in July 2021, I saw a scene that I believe regular Koreans like myself would usually not understand. The color of a car on its way to an exorcism ritual was clearly black, but as ticker on it read, “This car is red.”While that is a no-brainer for Thais, most Koreans would have been confused and had to look up what it meant.For Thais, color is a significant part of everyday life. For instance, there is a color for your birthday that depend son which weekday you are born. Sunday is red, Monday is yellow, Tuesday is pink, Wednesday is green, Thursday is orange, Friday is light blue, and Saturday is purple. Most Thai people know what color day their birthday was.Personal discrepancies exist depending on how seriously one is about the colors, similar to the belief in Western and Chinese zodiac signs in Korea. According to my Thai acquaintance, she knows that she was born on a Thursday, which is orange, but she does not necessarily believe in what it means. In Thai astrology, each of the colors represents a god that corresponds to the celestial body of the day. Most divination practices are based on these constellations.Interestingly, many Thais believe this despite being predominantly Buddhist. It is common for them to put such auspicious stickers on cars because they are serious about the secondary colors that bring them great fortune and complement their birth color’s shortfall. The stickers on people’s cars tend to be about this other lucky color. My Thai friend was not a firm believer, but after she had an accident in her black car that did not have a sticker, she stuck one on it that says, “This car is white.”Other than being auspicious, the colors have various meanings. Because red represents wealth, it is a popular color for wallets. Yellow wields authority, pink denotes love and friendship, green radiates life, orange conveys hope, light blue bring speace, and purple signifies prosperity.Because the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the current King Vajiralongkorn were both born on a Monday, yellow also symbolizes the king. On Mondays, some Thai citizens wear yellow clothes to show their respect for the king. Here is a fun idea for your next trip to Thailand: pick your clothes to match the color of the day. You can also ask your Thai friends for their birthday color and lucky color and buy them presents in those colors. Who knows? Their gratitude might come back to you as good karma.