The Reason It's Called a "Blue" Traffic Light in Japan

Strangely enough, people in Japan call the color of the green traffic signal "blue." The interesting reason is rooted in the Japanese language itself, as you will find out in this video.
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[@incubus_the_man]

The light looks like a turquoise (blueish green) to me.

[@TheRealDorran]

same

[@SecretofDarknessCZ]

Same

[@GeorgeJacks2012]

What blue actually means in Japan: DEATH BY THE BALL! :)

[@kirilvelinov7774]

Same as in China
We do have light red and light blue signals,but dark red,dark blue and gold road signs

[@dia7612]

Thanks

[@Jorghee316]

to be very frank I've been confused about this for a long time, 青 (Qing) is exactly what they are talking about, the Japanese refer to 青 as blue. Traditionally, green is known as 绿 (Lv). The funny thing is, if you go to some parts of China, they will also tell you that 青 is Blue. But, in the modern setting 青 literally means green which stands for 绿 . So it's not entirely a lack of vocabulary. It could be a combination of combined color recognition AND color identification.

[@nanoka_2000]

確かに、日本って緑色のものを「青」と呼ぶ習慣がありますね
山が連なる様子を「青々とした山」と言ったりします

[@celebrityrog]

To me, it looks like a lighter green than American traffic lights. I think with the individual LEDS produce a brighter type of light that looks just ever so slightly blueish in the green. Although I distinctly remember seeing some lights that to me seemed more blue-green than others. Whether thats LED or another older type bulb I didn't notice, just some of them happend to look a little more bluish.
With regards to having a vocabulary for all things in the world is kinda limited when you're an island nation that for most of its history was a self imposed isloated one, so no doubt certain words that were created in other languages to describe colors and spread due to trade, roads across continents, that just never made it to Japan. I happen to think actual blue lights would be cool, or even a more teal color, and I also would really enjoy saturated green ones like a clover color.

[@WatermelonBoi-e4c]

Now Theres A Word For Green In Japan

[@smhorse]

It's bizarre.

[@trafficlightcollection99]

It's turquoise traffic light in Japan

[@にこ-c7l]

It looks blue to me.

[@dang25272549]

OBVIOUSLY...IT'S GREEN .

[@TheRealDorran]

thought it said world

[@videoseeker117]

Q : why green is called blue
A : because long ago theres no such thing as green
🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

[@crocogator665]

The ways we split up colors into words can vary between languages. In English, "light blue" and "dark blue" are both described as "blue", but in some languages they are completely different words. Of course, in English, we can specify "light blue" and "dark blue", but they're both considered different shades of blue, rather than completely different colors. Similarly, it used to be the case that "green" and "blue" were just different shades of "ao" in Japanese. Eventually, the word "midori" started being used to describe green specifically.
In English, "orange" used to not have its own word. It was just "yellow-red".