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  • 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

Hello everybody, welcome back to Flag/Fan Friday

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