White is unlucky as it’s linked to mourning and funerals

Setting:
Two friends, Li Wei (the rational thinker) and Chen Fang (the superstitious one), are sipping tea at a cozy street-side café in Hangzhou. It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon, and they’re chatting about Li Wei’s upcoming housewarming party.

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Chen Fang:
glancing at Li Wei’s phone wallpaper
Wait a second. Is that your new living room? Why on earth is the couch white?

Li Wei:
laughs
Yes, why not? It goes well with the light wood floors. Clean, bright, modern.

Chen Fang:
Clean? It’s a funeral color! You’re inviting bad luck into your new home, Wei. White is the color of mourning! My grandma would faint if she saw this.

Li Wei:
Fang, your grandma also thinks leaving chopsticks sticking upright in rice summons ghosts. We both know that’s just old superstition.

Chen Fang:
But some traditions exist for a reason! White has always been unlucky in Chinese culture. Weddings are red, not white. Funerals are white. There’s a reason red envelopes are lucky and not white ones.

Li Wei:
True, red has symbolic meaning—happiness, prosperity. But come on, we’re not in the Qing dynasty anymore. Look at Korea, Japan, even modern weddings in China—people wear white now! Are they all cursed?

Chen Fang:
Hey, don’t joke! My cousin wore white to a family dinner once, and that month her car got hit—twice. She swears it was the outfit.

Li Wei:
chuckles
So white cloth attracts bad drivers now?

Chen Fang:
It’s about energy, okay? Color has vibes. White is too cold. It makes things feel lifeless.

Li Wei:
Tell that to hospitals. Or Apple. Or every Scandinavian design catalog. You think Ikea is haunted?

Chen Fang:
Maybe that’s why their instructions are cursed…

Li Wei:
laughs loudly
Okay, I’ll give you that one. But honestly, colors don’t have inherent luck. It’s psychological. We associate white with mourning because we decided to. There’s no scientific evidence that white brings misfortune. It’s just… cultural context.

Chen Fang:
But culture affects how we feel! If you feel uneasy with a color, maybe it’s not irrational—it’s your intuition. That feeling protects you.

Li Wei:
That’s fair. But isn’t it better to understand why we feel a certain way instead of blindly following it? Like—if I told you eating pears during Chinese New Year is unlucky because “pear” sounds like “separation,” would you stop eating fruit?

Chen Fang:
…I do avoid pears during New Year.

Li Wei:
facepalms
Fang! Language puns are not fate!

Chen Fang:
It’s not just language—it’s respect. If something has been passed down for generations, who are we to toss it out because “science” says so?

Li Wei:
I’m not tossing tradition—I’m just saying let’s not let it control our lives. Science also evolves, just like culture. My white couch isn’t inviting ghosts. Worst case, it invites coffee stains.

Chen Fang:
laughs reluctantly
Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when a bird poops on it during a party.

Li Wei:
Deal. If that happens, I’ll wear red every day for a week to restore cosmic balance.

Chen Fang:
You’d better! And no white envelopes for me, please.

Li Wei:
Noted. Only festive red—with extra good-luck stickers.

Chen Fang:
Now that’s better.