User:RM395/Course/Manypedia/flag

Flag (English and Chinese)

I chose to look at the pages for flags in English and Chinese. In the United States, flags have an almost spiritual meaning. There are special rules about it not touching the ground and the citizens pledge allegiance to the flag. The flag has a huge importance, so I wondered if that was the same in other countries. All countries have flags, but it is possible that they don’t hold as much meaning in other places. I thought it would be interesting to look at these differences, and I chose China because I wanted to keep the same two countries for all of my comparisons.

Both flag pages categorize with the different types of flags based on their uses. The English flag article is much longer than the Chinese one and is broken up into many more categories. This tells me right from the start that the English speaking countries might place more value on the flag just because there are many more uses for them and there is more to say about each type. The introduction to the English article places a lot of emphasis on the military background of flags and gives a general description of the shape and décor factor of flags. The Chinese introduction talks about how flags are used to convey messages and also talks about the décor. Both mention state and regional level flags in their introduction as well.

Both articles have a focus on flags at sea. The Chinese article names the different types of flags and their meanings. There are different flag types for civilian vessels, government vessels, and warships. The English page also talks about categories, but it mostly focuses on the regulations such as the fact that you are supposed to sail with the flag of your country and the “courtesy flag” of the country that is your destination.

The English article has sections for “hoisting the flag” and “flagpoles”. These go into detail about the procedures and meanings of actions involving flags. Those procedures aren’t talked about in the Chinese article, which makes me think that they aren’t as important in Chinese culture.

The rituals mentioned and length of the English article were definitely what I expected. However, I didn’t expect the emphasis on flags at sea and how similar those would be between the two articles. That makes perfect sense, though, because all countries follow the same rules. The general idea I got from the articles is that flags have a more ritualistic meaning in English speaking countries and a more straight forward meaning in China.