This weekend, while walking in Tacoma, I noticed a house flying an Israeli flag. That it in inself is unusual; it clearly wasn’t a synagogue or cultural center, and Tacoma has a very tiny Jewish population. But in the same neighborhood, I saw about a year earlier the most unusual flag I’ve ever seen on a private house–a Turkish flag! Where and why they got the flag I don’t know. What flags have you seen on private houses or other unlikely places have you seen?
My assumption would be they’re Turkish? That doesn’t really seem particularly odd to me, but, then again, I live in a city where national flags of all types are not unusual.
I live about a thousand miles from the Pacific coast. A guy down the street flies the American Samoa flag over his house.
My town has a tiny population of Arabs, mostly students at the university. I can count on one hand the number of Turks I have met in my life. But there is at least one house in my town that flies a Turkish flag.
I have seen one or two flags that I think were Wicca-related.
Riding on a bus through an economically distressed section of Troy, NY, back about 1980. We passed a large house that had been divided into a bunch of small apartments, or so it seemed. 1 of the upstairs apartments was flying a bright red hammer and sickle flag…the only time I believe I ever saw one on someone’s home.
Can’t think of anything unusual, but a few hundred feet away is my neighbor’s proudly flown Confederate flag. (A few hundred feet in the other direction are two neighbors with gigantic aluminum flag poles in their yards flying American flags.)
Does the flag of the small South American country in the movie “The In-Laws” count? (NSFW - google “the in-laws 1979 flag” if you’ve never seen it)
I’ve started taking note of flags when I travel. Interestingly, people in Thailand fly their flag as commonly as Americans do, it is very common to see a Thai flag in front of a private business or a home. In Thailand, you can just step out in the street and look both ways, and you’ll see a flag somewhere.
Ethiopians display their national colors as bands quite often, but the flag itself not so much.
Sri Lanka has, I think the most beautiful flag in the world, but in two weeks there, I never saw a single flag.
One of my tenants used to fly a Norwegian flag.
For unusual flags I like the state flag of Ohio. It’s the only state flag not a rectangle, but has pennant points, two, on the end. There are red, white and blue stripes, and a big O on it. One reason I love it so much is that when Obama was running for president, and made a campaign stop in Ohio, I read a letter to the editor from a woman who was frothing at the mouth over Obama altering the US flag! This person was so stupid or ignorant that she didn’t know the flag was a state flag. not a campaign banner.
Then there is the flag of the Islamic state of South Carolina. (Look at the flags of many Islamic states–palm trees and a crescent moon. Look st the flag of South Carolina.)
I’ve always been partial to Nepal’s flag, which I did often see flying proudly when I was in Nepal.
I’m in Moldova and see the Transnistria separatist flag often. My neighbor in DC collects flags and flies four different ones at a time in font of his house, just ones he finds interesting for one reason or another.
ETA: my mom was a vexillologist and we had stacks of books about flags in my house.
I didn’t see any of them when I was in Transnistria, but I wasn’t looking for them, either. Are you Moldovan? I thought Chisinau was a totally cool city, Id like to live there.
Oddly enough, the Transnistria flag is what I thought about earlier in the thread, but I for the life of me can’t remember where I saw it. I’ve never been to Moldova, though I did live in Hungary and traveled through Romania occasionally. Still, I can’t phantom why I would have seen one there.
No, I’m here on a business trip.
Mercer County, Ohio’s little gay lighthouse on the prairie.
I used to occasionally see an old Canadian red ensign flying from a home in central Ohio.
Maybe not unusual, so much as unusually displayed.
It’s 1992, the World Series, between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Atlanta Braves. In Game 2 in Atlanta, the US Marines were the colour guard, and they displayed the Canadian flag upside-down at the game.
Outrage in Canada, high-level diplomatic talks between Canada’s Prime Minister and the United States’ President, and Game 3 in Toronto comes along. The US Marines ask Canada’s permission to act as the colour guard in Toronto’s Skydome, to make up for the error, and promising to fly the Canadian flag correctly. Permission is granted.
Game 3. The Marines do themselves proud at Skydome, and they fly the Canadian flag correctly. The Canadian crowd is thankful, and joins in singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” Great job, US Marines–you manned up to your mistake, and made up for it. And Canada forgave you.
I’ve visited Dominica, and love their flag, which features a sisserou parrot, native to the island.
In January I found a store in St Martin that sold the Dominican flag, and purchased it. The storekeeper was curious why I liked the flag, and we got into a conversation about Dominica, the sisserou parrot, and a million other topics. It now hangs in my mancave where it has sparked numerous discussions.
The flag of East Turkestan somewhere around my neighborhood here in Stockholm.
Back when I lived in Juneau, there was one house that flew a different national flag nearly every day.
I also once found one of those little desk flags of the Azores, which I bought for my stepdaughter as she’s half Azorean.
A house around the corner from us has proudly flown an Arsenal Football Club flag for years, periodically replacing it when it shows signs of wear.