The Korean Flag: What It Represents

Perhaps this should’ve been my first posting on Substack. After all, this flag represents the country I was born in, the country I’m writing about.

These national flags have their own names. Can you name all four?

The American Stars and Stripes (or, Star-Spangled Banner). The United Kingdom’s Union Jack. The Italian Il Tricolore, and the Japanese Nisshoki.

The name of the Korean flag is 태극기 (tae-guk-gi, 太極旗). The suffix -gi (or, ki) simply means “flag.” So it’s “the Flag of Tae-guk.” The Japanese flag “the Flag of (the emblem of) the Sun.”

History first. Towards the end of the Joseon Dynasty in late 19th century during which foreign powers—Germany, United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Russia—were all trying to open the Korean ports for trade, there was no concept of a national flag in Joseon. So, when the Joseon military fired upon the foreign ships bearing their respective national flags, it obviously created unwanted tension. But from Joseon’s perspective, they had no idea what those flags meant—to them, they could’ve been pirates, for all they know (of course they knew the ships were foreign but couldn’t tell which was from where).

So, the King at the time, Go-jong (고종, 高宗) asks his son-in-law and top government official Bak Young-hyo (박영효), a very important figure in Korean history, to come up with a design for the national flag.

Bak Young-hyo (1861-1939), in full Japanese-styled aristocratic garb at the time

A word or two about Bak. He was one of the few foreseers who believed Joseon needed to open up and modernize—quickly. His group led a coup trying to get the Joseon Court to rid of all the rigid status quo and the “Ching Dynasty is all we need” faction and establish a new governing system under the same King, Go-jong, but ultimately failed. He designs the basis for what the Korean national flag should look like, but years later becomes a national traitor, helping the Japanese occupy and usurp Korea. Beyond ironic how things turned out—enemies within are always far more dangerous.

Anyway… getting back to tae-guk-gi itself, the white background definitely has a purpose. It’s not “empty.” It’s supposed to represent the long-held tradition of Korean peoples wearing white. The concept even has a name—baek-ui-min-jok (백의민족, 白衣民族), meaning literally “the people of white clothing.”

at a popular market in Seoul about 120 years ago. pretty much everyone’s in white.

In his memoir, a German graverobber Ernst Oppert (his failed attempt at one of the royal family members’ tomb was what set off Joseon court’s shunning of all things foreign) wrote, “… all Koreans, male and female, seemed to wear white…” and a French Le Temps reporter V. de Laguerie also wrote, “… all Korean peoples walk slowly and heavily, dressed in white…”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but the logo I’m using for my Substack is what we call the “tae-guk” symbol. Yes, it’s the variation of yin-yang mark with red on top and blue at the bottom. It symbolizes the ancient Chinese belief in universal truth—the balance of positive and negative, yang and yin, light and dark, heaven and earth, the circle of life, the fact that you can’t have one without the other.

stylized tae-guk, patently a Korean symbol

There are other types of this tae-guk symbol. There is the two-color tae-guk (like in the flag) and there’s the tricolor tae-guk as well, something you might have seen elsewhere.

And these marks are found at various places in Gyong-bok-gung (경복궁), the Royal Palace, although as mentioned before, there was no national flag during the Joseon Dynasty, signaling that the symbol has been with us for a very long time.

Now, on to the black bars in the four corners surrounding the tae-guk in the center. This is also based on the ancient Chinese philosophy—something called bagua (“Eight Trigrams” or, pahl-gwae 팔괘 pronounced in Korean). As the word “pahl” suggests, the theory goes, there are 8 elements that make up the universe, namely heaven, earth, lightning, wind, water, fire, mountains, and swamps. Of these, four were represented in the Korean flag—what we call 건, 곤, 감, 리.

• 건 (乾, gun): sky, or heavens. 3 solid lines ☰

• 곤 (坤, gohn): soil, or earth. 3 rows of dashed lines ☷

• 감 (坎, gahm): water. 2 dashed lines top and bottom and middle solid line ☵

• 리 (離, li): fire. 2 solid lines top and bottom, and middle dashed line ☲

It stands to reason that 건 (heavens) and 곤 (earth) would be placed at opposite ends, as with the 감 (water) and 리 (fire).

What is eye-opening about these 8 elements, thought to have been originally written in a text 5,000 years ago, is that they can be (and are) written in BINARY CODE using 1s and 0s!! Just like the computer language of today. (Seriously, I don’t think we know or appreciate enough about the capabilities and wisdom of ancient people.) Dashed line is 0 and solid line is 1, and you read from bottom up.

Tae-guk-gi is a lot of fun playing around with design-wise because there are different, yet simple and elegant elements. You will see a lot of the variations in Korean national team’s uniforms.

not athletes. popular singers and idols. the guy on the left (older) used to be one.

the red and white illustration on the helmet is a tiger.

National soccer teams have nicknames. The American team doesn’t have an official one, strangely, but the English team is known as “the Three Lions,” the French team “Les Bleus,” and the Australian “Socceroos.” The Korean team is known as the “Tae-guk Warriors (태극전사).”

I’m not a tattoo person at all, but if I had to get one from losing a bet (not that I would get into such a bet in the first place), I’ll probably go with something like this.