Korean Job Discussion Forums

[blunder1983]

Hi guys,

Next week we're starting a project where the kids design their own country. After ew do geography vocab and they draw a map of their island I'm having them design a flag for their country.

I'm going to explain that the Canadian flag has a maple leaf on it as its their national tree (is that right?)

I'll show how the UK's flag is made up of the emblems of its patron saints.

Finally I'll show the Japanese flag and ask what it looks like (elliciting the sun).

BUT i'd love to have the Korean flag in there too. Is there any story behind why the Korean flag looks like it does?

[HapKi]

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/kr.html

google- try it, it works.

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.

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. For example, the upper left Kwae, called Kun, is composed of three solid unbroken bars. And the lower left Kwae, called Yi, is composed of two unbroken bars and one broken bar in between. Since one bar can be either broken or unbroken, i.e. same concept as bit as in the binary computer world, three bars can express 2**3 = 8 combinations. If you use four bars you can express 2**4=64 combinations; 10 bars, 2**10=1024, etc. Therefore the more bars you use the more different situation you can express with Kwae. Among so many states of Kwae, i.e. principle of movement of objects and events, four basic Kwae are used in the Korean National Flag. Those are Kun meaning heaven, Yi meaning fire, Kam meaning water, and Kon meaning earth. Each of them symbolizes a different state of movement.

[Wrench]

Don't use Japan as an example. Avoid that possible mess.

[On the other hand]

[lastat06513]

[peony]

i think koreans fully accept that a lot of ideologies came from china, i wouldnt brace myself for the flying soju bottle that will never come