ICV 23 - Day 4

The first presentation of the day was by Nozomi with his topic was the the history of the Taeguk (Korean) flag. I was tasked with filming this presentation, so I wasn't at my laptop to sit and take notes. However, main years of focus was from the start of the Korean missions to Japan until the adoption of the national flag of South Korea in the 1950's. At first, the Korean flags were just a plain background with Chinese characters on it, with some fringe at the end. Later on, the Koreans decided to use the Taeguk symbol and the four trigrams. Despite the long use of the flag, it took that same period of time to even sort out what the true design was, but was still a unifying symbol of Korean statehood and nationalism when occupied by Japan. We did see a few flags of Korea under Japanese control, but it was mostly the Hinomaru. The strangest things I saw was the Korean flag used in the canton of a stripped military flag (but I have seen a modified South Korea flag used in that way for some kind of naval flag currently) and the use of the S. Korean flag on some of the first stamps issued by the newly formed North Korea. I also do recall Nozomi kept on bringing Korean flag books for us to read at the bazaar.

The next presenter was Michelle Lupant, who spoke about the flags of Bhutan. His main focus was on the dragons that are used on the Bhutan flag, such as the sizes, position and colors of the flag. This was mostly based on his trip to the country on several occasions. He did not bring any of the flags he purchased, but he noted many of the flags used in Bhutan do have a white dragon, but with too many design variations, color variations and also some incorrect description. We did see a few army and police stations, but each agency decides if they want to use the national flag in the canton in full or just omit the dragon.

During the coffee break, I showed a few of the delegates some of the research I have done at the National Archives in Japan. I first pointed out the actual construction sheet of the naval ensign; the ratio of the flag is the same as the national flag. The red color is in Munsell and it is listed as 5R 4/12. The position of the sun is off center; the way the sheet has it was to picture a triangle at the hoist and one at the fly. The one at the hoist has an angle of 50.625 degrees and the one at the fly has an angle of 61.875 degrees. The center point of the sun is at the meeting of the two triangles. For each sunray, it has an angle of 11.25 starting from the center. On the hoist side, it has 7 sunrays (11.25 x 7 = 78.75 degrees), the fly side has 5 rays (11.25 x 5 = 56.25 degrees). On the top and bottom, they both have 10 rays (11.25 x 10 = 112.5 degrees). So 112.5 + 112.5 + 78.75 + 56.25 = 360 degrees.

The next presenter was Ted Kaye, who presented a paper about the failed attempt of the redesign of the flag of the American state of Oregon. He talked about the process from the start to finish, mostly pushed forward by a state paper and given some assistance by NAVA. The paper wanted a “facelift” for the state flag last year and got at least 2500 designs, but met with the obvious opposition from the citizens of the state and from the state leadership. The process took about half a year, and Ted mentioned all of the steps that needed to happen. There is a 5 step process needed in order to get a flag design changed; public uproar of current design, willingness to change, designs, committee to pick the new design and support from the governmental bodies to effect the change. He talked about other state flags that went through some similar process and discussed some other states that had a similar process, such as Utah. He mentioned that Minnesota will be the most likely flag that will change next. We were able to give a preference to the flags we like the best, but I noticed two of the ten designs looked exactly the same as other flags; one looked like China to some degree and one design was almost exactly like the Malaysian state of Penang.




Next up was Colin and his presentation about flag awareness to the local community. He mentioned about doing small scale exhibits, but because of the hooliganism that is now associated with the national flag, it would been very hard to pull something like that now. He did mention of a hooligan problem back in 2007 where four male teens were stormed into the building and wanted to steal the Australian flags that were inside the hall. Several other Asian flags that were loaned out, such as Taiwan and South Korea, also somehow grew legs. But he tells us about a lot of support he has received from the local community about the different flags that he flies and where they come from.

After the lunch, we had another auction to help raise funds for JAVA. They sold a Yokohama city flag and two Australian books that were signed by the author. It raised just under 30,000 yen for JAVA, so I think JAVA raised about 40,000 yen or 50,000 yen from the auctions. Next for the presentation schedule, we hard from Miru Takano and his talk about the flags of Hokkaido Prefecture. This is the first presentation that was not given in English; Takano gave it in Japanese. The first slide was about the use of the star symbol on the current symbols of Hokkaido Prefecture or companies located in Hokkaido, such as the Sapporo Brewing Company. He also showed a government office called the Akarenga (red brick house) with a red star. Later, Takano started to talk in English about the progress of establishing flags for Japanese prefectures and local cities. He also explained on why some cities have not adopted flags or had flags, either because of refusal to adopt some kind of flag or due to the loss of records from fires or war. He mentioned most of the city flags were created during the Heisei period (1989 until present). The reason why he focused on Hokkaido specifically was because this is his home prefecture. In the early 1930's, about 18 percent of cities inside Hokkaido adopted emblems and flags that had some sort of star on it. Some of the stars are red, white, blue or some other color. He showed the slides twice so he could translate it (mostly omitting the name machi, or town, from each location). I thought it was not needed, but it is his presentation, not mine. The next flag he showed was of Hokushin-ki, an area set up by the Japanese military on Hokkaido. This star is supposed to be the polar star, and with it being centered on a white field, it is showing that the polar star is placed in a good position in the heavens. The next slide had the mons of several families; before the Americans and other foreigners showed up, the sun was used to represent a star. For the Kuyo kamon, you will see 7 small circles with a large circle in the middle. The star wasn't used much by the Japanese until the end of the Edo period. At the same time, the introduction of the 5 point star was done by the Americans and other nations during a colonization period. Most of the early stars were curved and were mostly outlines (like the Star of David is depicted on the Israeli flag). This red star/white field flag only lasted for about 12 years. The same colonization office that used the red star/white flag also adopted an ensign; the red star was kept, but the white field was changed to a navy blue. The star was slightly modified to make it fat, almost like the early Communist Vietnam flags. A proposed ensign still had a blue background, but the star points were changed from 5 to 7 (exact same style as the Commonwealth Star on the Australian flag). More flags were being modeled after the colonization office flag, such as a fat red star on a white field and the words for Sapporo College (Sapporo Daigaku) in kanji at the bottom. Public services, such as fire and safety, plus the military were using flags that had a red star on it somewhere in various sizes and positions. The hospital flag did feature a star on their flag, but it was colored whited on a red field (diagonal blue/red, from hoist to fly). Hokkaido University used a symbol that did not include a star, but it mostly had a flower and the university name at the bottom.

Next up, Alian Raullet of Brittany gave a presentation about the “Voice of Vexillology.” He spoke about trying to get a radio spot in 2006 to talk about vexillology. On the radio, they would do a 5 minutes presentation about each flag, the symbolism, selection process and other information that could be found. If there was a presentation that could win for the funniest, this would have been it for using many funny photos and his talk caused people to laugh about every 2-3 minutes. The first season was in 2006-2007 where it had just an introduction to vexillology, Breton flags, city flags and misc. 07-08 season had more information about Breton flags and other flags in the news, ditto for 08-09. However, but he found it very hard to describe flags on the radio, but gives us another medium to expand our studies and to give people an idea on what we do. He also played one of the first broadcasts for us, but since I barely know French, I barely caught exactly what it said fully. But it sounded like an introduction into vexillology and some of what we do.

After a short coffee break, Kato allowed for Gus T. to be able to answer questions about his presentation from Tuesday (Wednesday was the trip to Yasukuni). The questions and comments ranged from just general usage of the rainbow flags by various communities and organizations to the Waphilia flag used in Bolivia. After a few minutes, Zeljko Heimer was up next to describe the flags of Croatian Armed Forces and of local unit flags of Zagreb. In Croatia, there is a total of approximately 700 units in the entire modern history of the CAF, but the total of flags are not known due to several key factors. Documented flags are over 300 and he guesses about 400-500 unit flags. His main focus was on Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, which has about 147 units in the city. The flags, according to law, can be issued by the Supreme Commander of the CAF, or the President of Croatia. He can adopt the flags once given suggestions by the Minister of Defense. With exception at a parade in Zagreb in 1991, the President of Croatia hasn't granted or participated in granting of flags to individual units. Most of the flags that are shown in parades are reproductions of various war flags, either due to lack of research or trying to protect the real ones from wear and tear. In the documented flags, the ratio of real to reproductions is about one to one. He later broke these flag down to 6 types; three dealt with modifications of the state flag, one had original designs, two are monocolored that had mostly the unit emblem in the middle. He also mentioned that most of the unit flags are in some shade of blue, which is used on the flags of Zagreb, the air force, naval and one of the main colors of Croatia.

The next presenter was Tony Burton, who gave a presentation about the flags of the Palio Di Siena, based in Italy. These are the flag tossers we are familiar with, especially during one of the ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin. The Swiss also perform the flag tossing. The Palio is mostly a horse race, but it lasts for several days. One of the early flag traditions is to place the flags of the horse racers are placed in a church, mostly to bless the banners and to pray for the safety of all of the horses. The main prize of the race is the palio itself, a black and white cloth that is placed on the banner of the victor. The palio is based on a cloth that is award to bishops. The design of the flags itself are based on traditional communities and use colors and symbols that are associated with the major trade of the residents, such as carpenter or butcher. There are 17 main banners of these areas and are displayed mostly during this horse race. In a second part of the presentation, Tony took the design style of these flags and see if it could be applied to flags that are very similar, such as the state flags of Australia. Later on, he showed a design of the Australian flag, using the Palio motif; having a ying yang effect and almost like origami. He also made it into cloth, which invited a lot of cheers and photographs.

Victor Lomanstov was up next, talking about military (land forces and Cossacks) flags from Orenburg, Russia. He spent the first few minutes talking about the organization of the military units and gave us some term definitions, such as the Cossacks. Many of the first military banners of these units had either have crowns, religions icons or the double headed eagle coat of arms. Orenburg received her first banner at 1756, which was presented to the local Cossack unit. On the flags presented later, the symbols of the Czar was placed on the reverse of the flag, mostly to show when the unit was created. On the obverse, you have the Imperial coat of arms. For the local regiments, you will see square banners with the same themes of religious symbols, Imperial coat of arms. For each section of one hundred troops, they had a special banner to indicate the unit. In 1900, you have a new banner that looks very similar to the current Russian military banner. On the front, you have the face of a religious icon; the reverse as the symbol of the Czar. On the sides, you had either a decoration or text. Due to the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, the red banner became popular with the Cossacks and other units in order to show socialism and the end of the Imperial rule in Russia. Other flags were used, but not much evidence was found for them. With the fall of the Soviet Union, more Cossack banners were created; still has the religious icons on the front, but it has the new Russian arms on the back of a St. Andrews flag (white field, light blue cross). He was the last presenter of the day, so Kato gave us the schedule of what we needed to do tomorrow.