Via East Windup Chronicle is this picture of a "Snow Namdaemun" at the Sapporo Snow Festival constructed, as ROK Drop tells us, with help from the Japan’s Self-Defense Force. EWC says that according to a live web cam---which doesn't work for me---you'll notice there's a Japanese flag in front of it, although I haven't found any photos confirming that.
But on the topic of flags is news that a Korean flag near the sculpture was being flown upside down at the opening ceremony. I came across that news via a blog set up for Korean students practicing their writing. The student-poster concluded with:
This happened because of us: Koreans. If we had cared enough about our flag as much as we cared about ourselves this wouldn’t have happened. Also, some Korean students don’t even know how to draw their flag. It is a serious problem. I wish this could be a good opportunity for us, Koreans, to think about our flag and love our country.
That's rather . . . vague. The lone commentor added:
It is very true that most Koreans do not know how to draw a flag. I agree that it is important to understand the symbolic meaning behind a flag. However, the Japanese are not stupid. I think it was an intentional way of showing Korea that they are still above us.
In December I was teaching a lesson about the Korean flag and was surprised by the number of students who didn't know how to draw the flag. So while it's embarrassing I'm sure to see your national flag flown upside down, I'm going to venture it was ignorance rather than an intentional sign of disrespect. And given how often the same error occurs among Koreans, let's not get too worked up about it.
2 comments:
It's hard to remember which trigrams stand for what too.
Reuters has a video that shows a Japanese flag in front, although it looks like a fatter version of the sculpture (which I've seen described in photos as the Namdaemun sculpture, so..). Maybe it was incomplete or there are two sculptures.
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