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Gray: a dominating color in Beijing

Every city has its main color. In Paris, for example, the main color is grayish white and in London, yellowish gray becomes the dominating color of buildings in the city. What is the major color in Beijing, then? Not long ago, an authority in Beijing said that gray is the main color in the capital.

Why did he say so? Because during its 800 years of history as the national capital, gray had always appeared as the most suitable color for Beijing. It conforms to the city’s local culture and its climate features.

When one strolls about the city, one can see that most of the buildings in the city are painted in gray. The quadrangles are made with gray bricks and the city wall, the walls surrounding the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace are all painted in gray color. Such gray is not the common “mud gray” color as we often think. It is a color mixed with a bit of blue, making it seem very clean and with an air of solemnity.

In movies, a typical scene about Beijing city is that under the blue sky and white clouds, a group of pigeons are flying over a large area of bungalows built with bluish gray roofs. This shows that gray suits well the city’s general structure.

However, this doesn’t mean that all buildings in Beijing are gray in color. There is always an exception. In Beijing, the walls that surround the Tian’anmen Square, the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, the Zhongshan Park, and the Cultural Palace of Ethnic Minorities are painted a red color. The red walls, plus the yellow glazed tiles and green trees, fully display the grandeur of royal buildings.

It does make sense for people to select gray as the main color for Beijing. According to Feng Jicai, a renowned writer and cultural heritage expert, countries that have a superficial taste for culture like to use bright colors, while countries that are rich in culture often prefer neutral colors or some compound colors. As a cultural city that has survived for thousands of years, the bluish gray might become the most suitable color for Beijing.