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This Is Why Japan Has Blue Traffic Lights Instead of Green

Brandon SpecktorBrandon SpecktorBrandon SpecktorUpdated: Jan. 31,
2023

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This is what happens when you have one word for two colors.

traffic-lighttraffic-lightSalaryman/ShutterstockIt's a lesson most of
us learn years before we're old enough to see over the dashboard: Red
means stop, green means go. Simple enough. But what happens when you
live in a culture where green also means blue? (By the way, this is
why our own traffic light colors are red, yellow, and green.)

That's when you see things like this. Drive around Japan long enough
and you'll probably run into one of the country's mythical blue
traffic lights. Elsewhere around the island you'll find "go" signals
that are decidedly teal, turquoise, and aqua. "Is this signal broken?
" you might wonder. "Did some overworked light-monger install the
wrong bulbs?" The answer, as Atlas Obscura points out, is not in the
wiring: it's in the Japanese language.

Hundreds of years ago, the Japanese language included words for only
four basic colors: black, white, red, and blue. If you wanted to
describe something green, you'd use the word for blue--"ao"--and that
system worked well enough until roughly the end of the first
millennium, when the word "midori" (originally meaning "sprout")
began showing up in writing to describe what we know as green. Even
then, midori was considered a shade of ao. As you can imagine, this
sudden switch-over had lasting effects in Japan. One of the most
popular forms of Japanese wordplay is numeric substitution--writing
numerals in place of words or letters with the same phonetic value.
Find out why the number 39 means thank you in Japan.

Today you'll still see green things dubiously labeled blue. A fruit
vendor might sell you an ao-ringo (blue apple) only to disappoint you
that it's actually green. Likewise, green bamboos are called aodake 
("blue bamboos") and an inexperienced employee who could be described
as "green" in America may be called aonisai, meaning a "blue
two-year-old." And that brings us to traffic lights.

Initially, Japan's traffic lights were green as green can be. Despite
this, the country's official traffic documents still referred to
green traffic lights as ao rather than midori. While international
traffic law decrees all "go" signals must be represented by green
lights, Japanese linguists objected to their government's decision to
continue using the word ao to describe what was clearly midori. The
government decided to compromise. "In 1973, the government mandated
through a cabinet order that traffic lights use the bluest shade of
green possible--still technically green, but noticeably blue enough to
justifiably continue using the ao nomenclature," Allan Richarz writes
for Atlas Obscura.

So, while it may appear that Japan uses blue traffic lights, the
government assures us it's actually just a very blue shade of green
--green enough to satisfy international regulations, blue enough to
still be called ao. Don't ever say bureaucracy never solved anything.
(And make sure you brush up on these driving etiquette rules while
you're at it.)

Originally Published: September 22, 2017
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