Upside-Down Patterns and Five-Stroke Trigrams: Confronting the Reality of 'Flawed Taegeukgi'

[Anchor]

Many of you likely hoisted the national flag, the Taegeukgi, in front of your homes yesterday for Liberation Day on August 15. However, it is reported that an abundance of flawed or incorrect Taegeukgi designs can easily be found on accessories and clothing we encounter in our daily lives.

Reporter Cho Min-ki investigated the reality of the situation.

[Reporter]

Incorrect representations of the Taegeukgi can easily be spotted across everyday spaces nowadays.

Examples include the central Taegeuk pattern being flipped upside down, or all four trigrams, known as the gongon-gamli, incorrectly depicted with five strokes each.

The proper Taegeukgi features a red-and-blue central Taegeuk pattern oriented vertically, surrounded by the four trigrams arranged clockwise starting from the upper left, strictly following their prescribed number of strokes.

We visited a shop that sells these flawed Taegeukgi accessories.

When asked why such defective products were displayed right at the front of the shelf, the merchant shifted the blame, saying they were imported from China.

[Taegeukgi Accessory Vendor : (The design is different from a standard Taegeukgi.) The kids in China made it wrong. It's not like we made it wrong. Plus, they are hard to see. You are being way too sensitive.]

This inevitably prompts criticism that products manufactured overseas should still undergo proper verification.

[Lee Eun-sil / Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province : Many foreign visitors come to see them, and it is quite regrettable that such items are being offered as souvenirs.]

[Kim Su-hong / Dalseong County, Daegu : Since our national flag is a symbolic object, I feel there is a strong desire and sentiment for people to understand it correctly.]

The problem extends beyond physical markets; T-shirts and other items with distorted Taegeuk patterns or improperly rendered and arranged trigrams are openly sold on major domestic online shopping malls as well.

Aside from Chinese e-commerce platforms like AliExpress, a prominent overseas brand sparked controversy last month by releasing a product featuring an incorrect national flag design.

[Park Mi-kyung / Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province : First of all, our own people need to know properly what the Taegeukgi looks like.]

[Seo Krok-jung / Professor, Convergence Studies, Sungshin Women's University : Selling merchandise related to the national flag that contains errors is quite embarrassing. It is a very unfavorable situation that tarnishes the country's image.]

While the current Framework Act on the National Flag of the Republic of Korea mandates standards for the production, hoisting, management, and preservation of the flag's dignity, it lacks separate penalty provisions, leaving no legal grounds to sanction the distribution and sale of incorrect flags.

Calls are growing louder for stricter inspection of domestic manufacturing and distribution processes regarding products featuring South Korea's national symbols.

(Reported by Kang Si-woo | Video edited by Cho Mu-hwan | Graphics by Kang Yun-jung)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.