Hello, everyone.
Welcome to this May edition of This Month in Flag News.
I am Vexillographer, and our first story involves three countries, actually.
It involves the countries of China, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates.
Now, as you may know, the governments of China and Taiwan - called the People's Republic
of China and the Republic of China - have been in a huge dispute over who's the real
China for decades now, since the end of the Chinese Civil War.
Basically, the People's Republic of China is a communist-ruled government and the Republic
of China, also known as Taiwan, is a democratic government.
And yeah, it has not been very friendly.
So, because this dispute is so intense, pretty much every country in the world, as well as
most major corporations in the world, have to choose who's the real China because a lot
of business goes on with these countries.
So, because this one is the larger economy by far, most governments and big corporations
will say, "Okay, the People's Republic of China is the real China; sorry, Taiwan."
But they will still sort of recognize Taiwan as a sort-of country.
But they won't actually call it a country, because they don't want to make the world's
largest economy upset.
Anyway, that's called the One China Policy: there can be only one China - which one is
it?
And most people choose the bigger one, because they want the sweet cash.
Anyway, back to the United Arab Emirates.
The emirate of Dubai is, as you may know, crazy rich.
They've got the tallest building in the world, the tallest hotel in the world, the largest
indoor ski resort in the world, the largest set of artificial islands shaped like the
world in the world.
Dubai is crazy rich, and the government of Dubai actually owns a very well-known airline
called Emirates.
And the Emirates airline has uniforms for its cabin crew and flight attendants - its
employees like that.
And you'll notice the uniform is sort of tan, and they have little name badges and little
pins here and there.
As part of the uniform, Emirates employees in the cabin crew wear little flag pins to
show what country they're from.
If they're from Australia or Tunisia or from the UK or Cyprus, they have a little flag
from wherever country they're from.
They have a little flag pin.
Well, there are many Emirates employees from Taiwan, and China is not a very big fan of
the flag of Taiwan because, y'know, they want to be the real China.
They don't like this country existing.
So the Taiwanese flag, to the Beijing government, is sort of like a rebel flag that, y'know,
no one should use.
So, an email got leaked and released to the public that came from a manager from the Emirates
airline.
And here's what it said.
"Dear All, We have been instructed by the Chinese Government that with immediate effect,
Emirates airline cabin crew are to follow the One China policy.
This means you must remove the Taiwanese flag from your service waistcoat and replace it
with the Chinese flag.
This must be followed by all Taiwanese crew without exception."
So basically, the Emirates airline manager emailed all Taiwanese staff, saying you can't
wear the flag of your country on your uniform anymore.
You have to replace it with this flag, the flag of the communist country that doesn't
want your actual country to exist.
So that's a little bit of an insult to anyone from Taiwan.
Um, not the greatest PR move.
It was pretty much a public relations disaster for the Emirates airline.
So, people from Taiwan started posting Taiwan flags all over the Emirates airline Facebook
page.
The government of Taiwan's foreign ministry sent a complaint to the airline.
It was just... yeah.
So, shortly after this whole thing exploded, the Emirates airline made a statement saying
that the email was sent in error and that they had retracted the email, and they said
that they are working on a uniform update.
Basically, no one's gonna wear any flag pins anymore on the airline's cabin crew.
So if any of y'all fly Emirates a lot, you might notice pretty soon that your flight
attendants aren't wearing flag pins anymore.
And that's why.
Let's move on to our next story.
Our next story comes from the city of Orlando, in the United States state of Florida.
Now, the Orlando flag committee met on May 17th, and they determined two finalist designs
out of the original four finalists.
On June 9th, the committee shall meet again to determine the final winner of the Orlando
flag contest.
And after that, it should go to the Orlando city council to hopefully become adopted as
the new official flag of Orlando.
Now, the committee was supposed - originally - was supposed to determine one final winning
flag on May 17, but the committee couldn't decide which of these two was better.
And, you have to admit, that's a bit of a hard choice.
If you're a huge fan of the colors dark blue, light blue, and white; it's a hard choice.
If you're a huge fan of the letter O, it's a hard choice.
If you're a huge fan of water, it's a hard choice.
I mean, come on, I'm a huge fan of water; I buy so much merch, it's like I'm probably
60% water by now.
Anyway... shoutout to all my fellow Waterheads out there.
Anyway.
There are a few unique aspects of these flag designs.
If you look at this one, it has six stars above the O, representing the six districts
of Orlando.
And if you look at the other one, it features a really cool image of Orlando's very iconic
fountain on Lake Eola.
Although, some people still are confusing it for other things like a whale, or a pineapple,
or a toilet plunger.
I think it looks cool.
Anyway, Orlando, I am looking forward to seeing what your new flag - if you adopt a new flag
- is gonna look like.
I'm at least excited to see the winner of this contest finally.
Let's move on to our next story.
Our next story comes from the United States state of California.
This is the current flag of the city of Redding, California.
You can tell because it has the words "City of Redding, California".
More like the city of READING, California.
Anyway, thankfully, the city council of Redding understands that it needs a new flag.
And they were really close to adopting a new one in January of this year.
This is what it would've looked like.
Now, you see that white shape in the center of the flag?
That is a picture of the city of Redding's beautiful pedestrian bridge that crosses the
Sacramento River.
It's called the Sundial Bridge, and I think it would be a great unique symbol for Redding
that no other city in the world has.
It's a beautiful looking bridge, and it would make a great symbol on a flag.
So they were really close to adopting this in January, but after some complaints from
citizens of Redding, the city council instead decided to hold a flag design contest so they
could take flag design ideas from Redding residents, or "Reddidents".
Anyway, this May, they announced the five finalist designs of this contest.
And I gotta tell you, they look beautiful.
These look like beautiful designs; I'm very encouraged to see such good flag design coming
out of cities in America.
These look great.
You'll see a lot of them also include the Sundial Bridge as one of the main elements
of the flag.
There are also some great designs that include references to the Sacramento River and Mount
Shasta.
These are just great designs.
I encourage you to go look at them at reddingcityflag.com, and on this website you can send your votes
on your favorite design from now until June 9th.
And on June 14th, which is Flag Day in the US, they plan to announce the winner of the
Redding flag contest.
And hopefully, city council will adopt it later on.
It's also an extra big deal for the winner of this contest, because the winner gets a
thousand dollars.
Redding, I think you're doing something right here.
Keep it up.
I'm looking forward to seeing what design wins.
Let's move on to our next story.
And our final story today comes from the United States state of Idaho, where the city of Pocatello
is still working on its city flag design contest.
Now, do you remember those 700+ designs they got from all over the world?
Well, the city flag design committee has narrowed it down to six design finalists, apparently,
according to this Local News 8 report.
But they haven't announced the finalists yet.
Guys, the suspense is too much.
I need to know what these designs are.
We're just gonna have to wait until they announce it officially until we know the finalists.
Ugh!
It's just, I really want to know.
I really want to know.
If only there was, like, a way to get a sneak peek.
If only there was, like, some video evidence or something...
Wait a minute, is that a video... on this Local News 8 report?
You know, I've seen enough of these TV crime investigation shows, that this might just
work.
Hey, editor!
Uh, yeah?
Think you can hack into that video?
I'll give it my best shot.
Yes.
Good, good.
Keep hacking.
I'm hacking as fast as I can.
So they're... sitting around a table, talking about the flag designs.
Looks like they're discussing Number 275.
You're right.
And I think they're making slight modifications based on people's suggestions and comments.
Whoa.
Fascinating. (typing aggressively)
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Stop. Stop.
Go back.
Right there.
That's the chairman of the committee.
Zoom in on that picture frame behind him.
There's a reflection.
Holy crap.
Enhance it.
Enhance again.
Enhance.
Enhance... why isn't it enhancing?
Actually, computers can't enhance photos like that.
Those TV crime shows made that up.
So you're saying we can't enhance the reflection?
We can't enhance the reflection.
Oh.
Though you could just look at the screen behind him.
Oh yeah!
Heh, thanks man.
So if this screen in the background is any indication, it looks like some of the finalists
might be slightly modified versions of Design number 3 and Design number 275, maybe.
Again, we can't be sure for sure until the committee actually announces the finalists.
And they haven't done that yet.
We're just gonna have to wait until they do.
Rmmh.
Anyway, thank you everyone, for watching this May edition of This Month in Flag News.
I am Vexillographer; and good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
By the way, thank you to everyone who voted for our channel anthem on our Facebook page.
If you want to hear what it sounds like, check out TheFlag&AnthemGuy's new video.
He made one of his famous flag-waving videos with our flag and anthem, if you wanna go
check that out.
And also check out his channel; he's really cool.
Thanks, everyone!
Bye.