Hello everybody, welcome back to Flag/Fan Friday
I hope you liked the North Korea episode.
Quick little side note: if you actually do end up meeting a North Korean in real life,
which is not a very common occurrence,
but if you do, do not call it North Korea to them; you have to call it DPRK.
They prefer to be called DPRK, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
And yes, there's a lot of other things I forgot to mention about North Korea,
but I tried to keep it as objective as possible, but I will admit, yeah
I mean legislatively, it is kind of an interesting country, and how they act on policies and how they operate.
Anyways, I'm just kind of rambling, so let's just jump into it the flag and stuff without further ado...
Yeah a lot of you guys were like,
"Oh, it's gonna be so difficult to write the North Korea episode."
Trust me, the Israel episode was way harder.
So anyway: the flag.
The flag is a banner with a wide red stripe in the center with white borders above and below, followed by blue bands respectively.
Near the high side lies a central five-pointed star inside a white circle.
Now, according to the Korean Friendship Association and the Rodong Shinmun,
which is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea,
the red star is a symbol of Juche, North Korea's legislative ideology, as well as revolutionary traditions.
The blue stands for sovereignty, peace, friendship, and unity, as well as the gallant visage of the people,
symbolizing the spirit of the Korean fight for world peace and progress.
Whereas the white fimbriation lines stand for ethnic purity, the one blood line, land, language,
and the unified nation and culture of a mono-ethnic nation that has lived in purity.
The red stands for...
Patriotism, determination, and anti-Japanese fervor.
And....
Once again
Thank you Ken for making that animation at the very last second, right before we flew to Canada to do the Geography Bee
I was like oh, Ken. I just... we need another animation
He's like, "on it." Follow him on Instagram if you want. Now keep in mind before this flag
They actually use the same flag as South Korea the Tengu Key, and all that crazy stuff happened
And they changed it all so you might see this flag a lot
It's the flag of the Workers' Party of Korea
Which is basically the flag of the ruling party of North Korea
Which is run by the Kim family. It even has its own monument in Pyongyang
So anyway the coat of arms, as you can see the emblem has a very similar format to the emblems of other former Soviet influence
Republics and countries. First you have the radiating red star positioned above mount Paektu
Positioned above the Supung dam, located on the border with China
Which was actually built by the Japanese during colonial times
But they kept it because it kind of symbolizes
Self-reliance, flanked by two ears of rice on each side, and a red ribbon that reads Chosun mean Jujuy mingle wok
Which means the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Prior to this they had two other emblems: one containing another power plant, and the other one containing a unified Korean Peninsula
But they kind of ditched it in favor of this one. So that's about it as you can see North Korea follows a lot of
Symbolism that is kind of influenced off of Soviet-era imagery, but ultimately the message that they're really trying to portray is
Self-reliant. So you know what that means now. It is, Geogra-Fanmail Time! Alright so this week
We got some really cool stuff from some really interesting places. I can't wait to show you guys. Alright
You know the deal, we always start off with postcards first. All right this first one,
it's a holographic postcard from Kevin from Hong Kong. This postcard is from John from Turkey,
but he visited Lisbon Portugal. This is from Nicole, who is from Ljubljana, Slovenia, but she visited
Liebe Poland. How do you pronounce; got that L with the slash through it? How do you pronounce the L with the slash written?
*Barb trying to pronouce it*
*Continues trying to pronounce it* yeah, that place in Poland. Joe is Czech, but he visited Basel in Switzerland
If you look at the postage stamp, it says CH. If you guys don't know CH is the Swiss acronym because it stands for
Confederation Helvetica. I got Saming who is Bangladeshi
But he lives in New York. He says, "I'm creating my own micro nation called brain trust territories
It's right in the middle of New York. I'm making my house a country." He also sends a $2.00 American Banknot
I have a ton of these. If you guys don't know about American currency, these are not very commonly used
We still kind of use them, but they're very rare. This is really cool, Adrienne from Malta,
"I really enjoy watching your videos of geography now very informative and concise," ah thank you, and he sends this Malta
2018 calendar. Dude, I am going to hang this up on my wall, I promise you
Next, Alex from Scotland; Glasgow, Scotland, "Hey Barb, I'm Alex from Glasgow.
I started watching your show from the Croatia episode." Here he wrote, "a wee booklet of my ancestry."
I'm gonna stop. A group of hikers from Czechia sent me this map of the Czech Republic, literally like the entire country.
Kimo from Finland
I love Finland. "Finland has as you may have already known running the Suomi
100 celebration which culminates the Independence Day on the 6th of December 2017." Yes
I believe that was actually my video. Ah dude, he sends these really old Finnish banknotes!
The top one here is from 1909 and this one is from 1918, the year after independence.
Oh, I see this one is from Damir from he's Slovenian, but he lives in the Netherlands. *Admiral Ackbar voice* "It's a trap!" Alright
This is really cool, Syrena from Belize
She sends us a Belize bumper sticker, "My mother is from Belize City, Belize. I'm very fascinated with my Belizean heritage." Okay,
this is really cool. This is gyeongtae or Jonte. I think I don't know how to pronounce her name exactly. He's from
Antigua and Barbuda, I've never gotten anything from you guys before, "I've been subscribed since my home country
And I love all the videos." He also sent some coins of the East Caribbean currency. I don't have these yet
They're so, they're so light
They're like made out of aluminum, and I even drew me with the geography now logo. Represent your country! Okay now,
this is a really interesting one. when I got this letter,
I noticed it didn't have a specific country or state applied in the address. It had the acronym FPO,
and the guy at the post office told me that stands for like a military base; and when I opened it,
I found this:
Miguel, who lives in Guam. He is currently serving in the United States Military, as a sailor in the Navy,
And he is of Filipino heritage. He sends these awesome postcards from Guam,
Aww, this beautiful map of Guam. he writes a pretty long letter about just all these fascinating things about his life
And his experiences. And finally this one takes the cake, I got an actual package from Tristan da Cunha, the most isolated
Inhabited island in the world. I never would have thought I'd get something from this island. Oh a lot of stuff, okay
Well Tristan da Cunha flag these really cool postcards of Tristan da Cunha. Oh my gosh Tristan da Cunha t-shirt. "Hey Paul
I'm a regular viewer of Geography Now
And I wanted to send you a package of souvenirs from Tristan da Cunha, the most isolated inhabited place on the planet
I'm not from the island yet. I am visiting for my second time." You've been there twice?
It's really hard to get there. "The photo is me, at pig bite near big point.
I'm sure you would do the Islanders proud if you produced a show about Tristan." Huh, you know what maybe I should do that someday
"From a Canadian fan, Craig." Dude, Craig, you are so lucky to visit Tristan da Cunha this.... ah you are so lucky man
How did you... probably got on a boat for like two weeks or something right?
It is so hard to get here. Alright
So that's it for today's episode, but before we go you know what time it is, it is return address contest
I put all your return addresses in this bag
And I pick one out and whoever wins, I send a little gift to. I am not gonna look... I'm not gonna look...
Let's see, uh
Alexa from Serbia, you just won!
Well, thank you. Everybody for sending all this cool stuff, putting your countries and hometowns and areas you visited on display
I love doing that. In the meantime, you've just been flagged. Stay cool, stay tuned