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Phil Chang's List: Asia Pacific Flags
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The story goes that during the 1916 flood the king of Siam – since 26th June 1939 called Thailand – saw the national flag – red with a white elephant – hanging upside down. Because of the distress a new flag was adopted that could not be hung upside down
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the middle stripe was changed to blue to show solidarity with the Allies during the First World War
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On 15 August 1947 the dominions of India and Pakistan were established. India adopted the familiar horizontal tricolor of orange, white, and green with a blue Ashoka Chakra at the center.
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he colors representing Hinduism (orange), Islam (green), and a hoped-for unity and peace (white
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The red in the flag represents the land of China itself, with reference to the Han race which is the dominant race among the many races of China.
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The white sun symbolizes the spirit of progress as the twelve points represent the twelve hours of the day (a traditional Chinese hour = two conventional hours)
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The flower on the flag is the Hong Kong Orchid Tree (Bauhinia Blakeana) - named after the British Governor of Hong Kong from 1898 to 1903, Sir Henry Blake, a keen botanist who discovered it near Pokfulam, Hong Kong Island, in 1880.
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The actual flowers are bright pinkish purple, not white as on the flag.
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According to Carol P. Shaw in the book Flags (Running Press), the red of the flag is the traditional color of revolution; the large gold star represents "the Common Program of the Communist Party";
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the smaller gold stars represent the four classes united by the common program: the workers, the peasants, the petty bourgeois, and capitalists sympathetic to the Party (or "patriotic capitalists").
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Bhutan is a Buddhist state where power is shared by the king and government. The country's name in the local dialect means Land of the Dragon.
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In Bhutan, thunder is believed to be the voices of dragons roaring
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The Korean national flag is called Taegukki. The meaning of Korean National Flag is very philosophical. The origin comes from the old oriental philosophy called the theory of Um-Yang, in Chinese pronunciation Yin-Yang. Yin means dark and cold, while Yang means bright and hot. The idea of Yin-Yang is supposed to be originated from the old Korean philosophy of Samshin meaning three gods. A very old book called Chuyok or Iching in Chinese, which was written by (a) Chinese several thousands years ago, claims all objects and events in the world are expressed by the movement of yin and yang. For example, the moon is yin while the sun is yang; the earth is yin and the heaven is yang; a woman is yin and a man is yang; the night is yin and the day is yang; the winter is yin and the summer is yang, etc. Yin and yang are relative. Therefore, A can be yin with respect to B while A can also be yang with respect to C. For instance, the spring is yin w.r.t. the summer and it is at the same time yang w.r.t. the winter. Yin and yang are opposite and struggle each other while they cooperate in harmony. The harmonious state of the movement of yin and yang is called Taeguki, or Taikukkki, Taichi in Chinese, which is also the name of the Korean national flag, i.e. Taegukki. Ki means a flag. (See the similarity between the concept of Yin-Yang-Taichi and the dialectics of thesis-antithesis-synthesis.) The upper half circle, red, of Taeguk means yang and the lower half circle, blue, means yin. They stand for the state of harmony of yin and yang.
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The symbols, called Kwae, in the four corners, mean the principle of movement and harmony. Basically, each Kwae consists of three bars that can be either broken or unbroken bars. A broken bar stands for yin while an unbroken bar stands for yang.
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The national flag has two triangles of red over black. The local kumul bird of paradise flies across the red half, symbolizing Papua New Guinea's emergence into nationhood. The five five-pointed stars of the Southern Cross constellation appear in the black, reflecting ties with Australia and other nations of the South Pacific. Black, red and yellow are also traditional colors in Papua New Guinea.
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The Papua New Guinea National Flag is a rectangular flag, proportions four to three divided diagonally from the top of the hoist to the bottom of the fly, the upper segment scarlet (Collies Number 305) overprinted on mid-yellow (Collies Number 537) charged with a mid-yellow (Collies Number 537) representation of a soaring Bird of Paradise, and the lower segment black (Collies Number 309) charged with five white five-pointed stars representing the Southern Cross).
The descriptions and positions of the Bird of Paradise and the stars are as follows:
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The Maori translation of the Cook Islands is te Kuki Airani, not Rarotonga, the latter being the main island of this country.
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The Cook Islands were declared a British protectorate in 1888, and annexed to New Zealand in 1901. In 1965, they were granted self-government with their own unicameral Parliament. They have an elected Legislative Assembly, and a Queen's Representative who ratifies the legislation. (Those familiar with Westminster style constitutions will understand that this ratification is merely a formality with its roots founded in the fact that the head of state is the Queen of New Zealand, as the Cook Islands are part of the Realm of New Zealand.)
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Chris wrote, "Fiji got kicked out of the Commonwealth as a result of the coup d'etat in (I think) 1987. Didn't change its flag, which is a defaced pale blue British ensign." Apparently (according to The Flag Bulletin) a public design competition was held in Fiji in 1990 for a new flag. A committee narrowed down the entries to six designs. But for some reason, the (now) republican government went cold on the idea, and dropped plans to change the flag. The six designs have never been made public. So Fiji retains the pale blue British ensign as its flag, despite it being a republic and, after being kicked out of the Commonwealth, having absolutely no relationship with Britain whatsoever other than historical. This struck me as being quite bizarre — after a coup to make Fiji a republic in 1986, why such timidity in changing the flag?
Brendan Jones, 10 August 1995 -
Fiji still retains very close economic and political ties with the UK, which may possibly have influenced its decision to retain the old flag. Remember that the British Foreign Office does not recognize Fiji's withdrawal from the Commonwealth and therefore treats Fijian citizens as through they were still in the Commonwealth. The Fijian ambassador is still the High Commissioner, for example, and Fijian students can still apply for Commonwealth scholarships (I know this because I used to help administer one). I think the Foreign Office is basically turning a blind eye to the problem (something they are very good at!) in the hope that it will somehow disappear.
Stuart Notholt, 23 August 1995
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The first design [1862] was a plain white flag with a red couped cross, but this was later found to be too similar to the International Red Cross Flag, adopted in 1863, and so the white flag was placed in the canton of a red one. The 1875 constitution states that the flag shall never be altered.
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The present design (...) was adopted for its symbolism (the red field is a representation of Christ's blood, and the cross also comes from Christian iconography) back in the 1870s or something on the understanding that it would never be changed.
David Kendall, 5 March 1997
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