ICV 23 - Day 2

I arrived at the Memorial Hall around 7:45 AM to wait for the rest of the JAVA members....but no one else showed up until around 8:30. It opened up about 30 minutes later, but as soon as I sat down, Emil from Switzerland had some flag books for sale. Once he put a book down to 1000 yen, I bought it; it was a military regulations about the Swiss flag and also about the Kantons. By the time Tetsuo Kato started his presentation, I went to 7-11 to pick up ice for the coffee room. I sat down at the back of the hall again, after giving the ice back, and I heard Kato's presentation about the Samurai lord flags. He was discussing the kamon of the various lords, then talked about the flags during the Kamakura and Sengoku periods. He also explained some military history, such as who invaded Japan and when combat changed from a single group to more of a combined force. To me, it felt a little bit long, but mostly because Kato tried to speak in English and there was many pauses. There was a question and answer period, which involved questions on why the lack of green flags used in Japanese samurai banners and the family crests are still used on flag like objects.

After dealing with the ice again, I sat down and watched the presentation about the Norwegian ensigns by Jan Osker Engene. He started with the historic flags when Norway and Sweden was still in a royal union. He did mention about the current Norwegian ensigns, but his main focus was the harbor service and the lighthouse service. He used a lot of sources and also books, but it was still confusing him that despite all of the writing about the flag, nothing in legal code has been found yet. I do like the photographs he showed from the period and also the reconstructions that he did. I personally find this presentation to be the best so far, at least in my opinion. He was very concise, clear and wrote the paper in a way that I would write for Wikipedia and also for a school paper; citations for every important detail and for images used. After playing around with the coffee machine with a Japanese lady, I came back to Engene's presentation and it had thee Swedish ensigns with the Union Mark. The presentation also mentioned the only time that the Norwegian parliament passed a law without the monarch's assent and it was the 1898 Flag Act, which demanded the removal of the Union Mark. I asked him about the Union Mark and wanted to know when was the first calls to remove said mark and for the Swedish reaction about this mark. It felt like Jan got most of the questions, but he was able to answer them all and thought it was very well done over all.

The presentations started again after a short break and some shopping of some books, Graham mentioned a few requests for the presentation of papers, Kin Spain asked for credentials for the general assembly and a banner was presented by Sanjeeva Rao of India to the congress and it is being displayed behind the lectern. The next presentation was by Joost S. of the Netherlands, who made a small pitch about ICV 25 and talked about hand painted Dutch ship flags. Most of the flags shown in the presentation was from a few firms of the 18th and 19th century and had a mixture of civic, shipping or governmental flags. Some of these flags were more like banners who had the hoists at the top and hang down vertically. However, no matter what the flags were used for, the name of the artist and/or the firm was painted somewhere on the flag in a way that did not make it distracting. For example, one company painted their initials on a small grave stone near a dancing man. The main firm that he spoke about was Elbers, a small family business in a small shipping town. He also made little side chat about roosters in the flag, evoking the poster Rao gave ICV 23 that has a rooster holding an Indian national flag. Just like with Jan Osker's presentation, Joost had a lot of questions he needed to field, but also was given a lot of hints about more hand painted flags and the different marks used by artists in other countries, such as an Australian artist using a mouse and national flag.

Graham was up next, talking about the recent changes of county flags and British vexillology. The main focus of what he tried to say is these county flags, no matter if it is used by just the county council or by her citizens, these flags serves as an identity for the counties. The county flags were based on the historical counties and not the current system set up by the British government. He also mentioned the registry system of county flags the Flag Institute set up. The first flags were the historical ones, such as Essex and Kent. Most of the new county flags were appearing since the 1960's, but with the case of Yorkshire, it just got registered and presented formally in 2008, yet it has one of the oldest designs from the 1960s. Many of the new flags were designed either by private citizens or were crated by special contests. Even more so, towns and villages in the United Kingdom are taking the lead of the counties and are also adopting flags via resolutions and contests. Graham also showed us the new ensign used by the Customs Service of the UK, which is a blue ensign charged with the new organizations badge. However, he suggested a quarter ensign (¾ sky blue, ¼ navy blue) with the badge and Union Flag. He commented that there are too many bloody blue ensigns to keep track of them all. I took pictures of these drawings, but I do hope the changes do happen.

I went to lunch with a few JAVA members, had some curry with a salad and miso soup. Went back to the Memorial Hall, where Nozomi and the JAVA members wanted to look at a few stamp sets they want to auction off during the ICV. Nozomi also finalized the delegate letter for JAVA, going to hand it to Kin Spain later on this evening. Other than a young looking girl at the next hall, I am the only non-Japanese here at the hall at 1:35 PM. And just as I finished saying that, some of the delegates just showed up for the next set of presentation and coffee breaks.

Peter Orenski started an auction of UN stamps to raise funds for JAVA. This was started before the presentation by Akira Kumagai about high school flags in Japan. The stamps were sold for 25,000 Yen to Colin from Australia. For the presentation by Kumagai, we had a giant handout with drawings, but also some technical problems with the lights and microphone. We got the see the symbols of various high schools that existed before the fall of the Empire of Japan. Many of the earlier established schools focused on the number of establishment, so First School, Second School, etc. The symbols they used also had either the kanji character (Third, Firth) or some design that showcases a number (Fourth, Sixth). All of the symbols were monochrome, just like the family kamon that we see on kimonos and tombstones. He also discussed about the types of decoration used on the flags, then showcased several flags that were a mix of original copies and modern reproductions. He also showed a hat from one of the schools.

Next up, Peter Orenski and his paper about the use of Native American symbols on US State flags. While the historical flags had many Indian symbols, he focused on the flags of six states. Not all of the symbols are considered controversial, the Oklahoma state flag ,the Florida state flag and the Kansas state flag have symbols that have nothing controversial about it and show Indians either in a neutral and/or respectful way. The main flags he wanted to focus on was Minnesota, which has the seal that has the white settler farming while a scared looking Indian on horseback walks; New Mexico with the Zia Pueblo sun symbol that isn't supposed to leave the reservation (and used on many other objects) and Massachusetts with the coat of arms (which is on the flag) that has a raised arm w/ a sword above an Indian. He presented the results of his survey about the Mass. Flag, everyone else but the majority else of residents in the state thought the symbolism was not comfortable or not suitable for use on a state flag (let alone a coat of arms). He also showed a drawing of a Indian-friendly Massachusetts coat of arms, which I don't think whitey will like very much.

After another short break, Ralph Kelly was next up to the lectern to talk about Dragons, Traditions, Emperors and Revolutions. Before then, I spoke with a staff member of Jack's Hall and explained to her what FIAV was, what we do and what kind of folks show up. She thought it was interesting about what we do and she explained to us about the problems with the Hinomaru and the use (in her terms, the major pushing) of that flag and the anthem “Kimi ga Yo” by those who are politically on the very right. She also talked about the Heisei 11 (1999) law that established both symbols officially saying it caused major problems for Japan. Now, back to Ralph's lecture, he spoke first about the dragon flags of Imperial China, the flags/banners used by the bakafu governments of Japan and the early legal adoption of the Hinomaru and the Siam elephant flag. For the areas that were captured by either European or other Asian powers, the Korea Taeguk flags, the Cambodia flag with a temple on a red field (and blue border on the edges, like Montenegro), Vietnamese flags and some Filipino flags (Sulu was pointed as an example). Despite the various colonization the European powers did, many states still existed and continued to use their own symbols beside those of the new colonial leadership. The French made a lot of flags that included the tricolor of France and the British focused on making badges for their controlled areas. The British also demanded these badges were used on ensigns, even if they could not be seen from a distance. However, the British allowed some areas, such as Malay, to make their own flags without using the British blue ensign. In Siberia, with the fall of the Imperial leadership, many flags were made to either break away from old Imperial flags and focus more on either local symbolism or to add the symbols of the brand new Soviet Union. The flags of Tibet and Nepal were mentioned, along with the flags of areas that Japan invaded, such as Taiwan and Manchuria. The Japanese military presence also caused nationalism to be installed into the people of occupied areas, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, Laos, Malay, Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma and the Koreas. After the Japanese lost the war, several flags were forced to be used by the Japanese and the Hinomaru was set away for a few years. The flags of India, Pakistan, some of the princely states (such as Sikkim), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Malaysia, Singapore, Maldives, Bhutan, Bangladesh, East Timor and Brunei were mentioned. He also explained about the Chinese flags, mostly related the Republic of China and the new Hong Kong and Macao flags showing how similar those flags are to the current PRC flag. The troubled history of the Cambodia flag was mentioned and showing how a new (or change) to the constitution will also alter the flags. Minor flag changes, such as that to S. Korea and Bangladesh to simplify the design or to add more symbolism, was done either shortly or years after independence. At the end of the presentation, there was trading of questions and answers about Siberia and the Tokugawa flags.

Next up, Gus T. from Argentina. He started a bit late because Ralph took a long time with his presentation and his Q and A session. Gus started to talk about the difference between the Inca and the groups inside the area where the Inca empire stood. His main focus was going to be the Incan symbols, mostly the rainbow flag. Gus went on to say that many of us vexillologists want to attach some kind of symbol to a group of people, borrowing a few words from Peter's presentation about the Native American symbols in US state flags. Unlike some of the native empires, the Inca did not have a flag that was documented by any source and no recorded evidence of the rainbow flag by any group inside this empire. The first even such flag of the Inca that was documented was some kind of arch with animals and a personal emblem on a banner. The documents mentioned a celestial arch, and due to some interpretations, call it a rainbow banner. In drawings done by a Spanish explorer, there was banners shown, but they were colored all black in the drawings and does not mention any sort of rainbow flags. In more reports by the locals in present-day Bolivia, there was mentions of a royal banner being used, but it was not drawn or described in any way, shape or form. Gus also talked about the Wiphala flag that is famous in Bolivia, ever more so since the election of Evo Morales as president of the country. In the elections regarding the new constitution in 2009, this Wiphala flag was elevated to the same status as the Bolivia tricolor, but there was no rules saying what to do with it and President Morales suggested a national flag with the mixture of the Bolivian tricolor and the Wiphala flag. There was a city in Peru that adopted a horizontal rainbow flag, and resisted changes once the Gay and Lesbian movement, along with their similar flag, was becoming well known in the world. The mayor of the city also used the rainbow design as a sash to show the office that he holds (like we see in a lot of Latin and South American nations for their presidents).


After Gus was Jan Henrik Munksgaard of Norway, who talked about the Lion flag of Norway. One thing that I noticed was that this first flag didn't have a blue cross in the middle of the white cross. Jan beat me to the punch by saying is that the Danish was in a union Norway, so they decided to use the Danish flag (which was very popular in Norway) that was charged with the lion at the top-hoist corner. In 1814, the Danish gave Norway to Sweden as part of a treaty. Due to the new government of the Norwegians, they needed a new flag to showcase the new state; yet the traditions of the Danish flag was kept by the Norwegians as a bridge to their history. However, other than just the different styles of the fly and who used what flag, many of the key elements of the Lion flag (such as proportion, color shades) was not clear. The Lion was a symbol of Norway since the 1280's, so this flag allowed the lion to gain more prominence as a symbol of the Norwegian people and state. Several ideas were given to give the lion a bigger presence, such as making the lion bigger and placing it in the middle; however the Norwegian government wanted the lion to still be in the canton and also have the lion facing towards the fly instead of the pole. Despite the government wishes, the idea on what the lion should look like and also where it should face was not decided by a law (but several military groups received flags that had the lion facing away from the pole). It took several years for the common flag to feature the lion facing towards the fly; the oldest surviving flag was from 1821 and it shows the lion facing towards the fly. In the terms of heraldry, the lion was always face towards to the left (dexter), yet on some devices, the lion was facing the other direction (sinister?). Because of some changes to the idea of flag design and the new ethos of “keep it simple,” and due to the confusion with the Danish flag, the lion flag didn't last long without it being changed. Due to the defeat to the Swedish, the Norwegians had to use a Swedish flag that was charged with a red/white union mark place at the corner. But, the lion flag was allowed to become the merchant flag for Norwegian ships.

After the General Assembly, which is another paper altogether, me and a bunch of Aussies and a few others went to dinner at a place where we cooked our own food in a Korean style. We talked about the GA, the winners of ICV 25 and ICV 26 and also about my adventures in Japan and finding a Japanese significant other.