My school has the flags of almost all of the nations of the world hanging in its main hall. I noticed one day that the flag of Vietnam was hanging with all the others. But I noticed something else, too. The Vietnamese flag that was there was the flag of South Vietnam, not the current flag, which was used in North Vietnam and became the official flag of a united Vietnam after the Vietnam war. Even weirder is that all the other flags are current, no former ones. I understand that the current flag is a symbol of Communism and all, but Wikipedia said that the use of the South Vietnamese flag is equally contriversial among Vietnamese Americans. So confusing! Please help!
I agree it doesn’t make too much sense on the face of it, after all the ‘country’ in question doesn’t exist. Some would argue it never was a democracy as we understand it, anyway.
I guess I’d be a little careful about what to do, if anything; lots of people have friends and family who died over there, and it wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility that the flag is an emotional gesture by someone senior at the school who lost someone close.
Lots of countries that aren’t democracies have flags.
There was a huge controversy a couple/few years ago in Garden Grove, CA. Garden Grove is the home of Little Saigon. I don’t remember the details, but IIRC someone displayed the current flag of Vietnam in his store. There was picketing, and it was all over the news. Unfortunately I don’t remember enough of the story to find a cite.
In any case, there were a lot of Vietnamese who came over after the war. Later there were the ‘Boat People’. People who have fled their country probably have a dim view of the ones who caused them to flee. It may be correct to replace the flag of South Vietnam with the official, current flag of Vietnam; but an angry mob may form outside of the school when the news gets out.
From Wikipedia:
Ah, Westminster. And in 1999. Well, Westminster and Garden Grove are right next to each other.
Thanks for the link.
Our kids’ elementary school has, hanging in the gym, the flags of the countries of origin of all current students. Quite a few of them. There’ve been no Vietnamese students since our kids have been going there, but I can see why the flag(s) would cause controversy. A recent-immigrant family of Vietnamese might prefer the current flag; a family which fled during or after the Vietnam War would probably like the older, red-stripes-on-yellow-field version.
The flags of local ethnic groups are periodically flown from the roof of Cleveland City Hall. I’ve seen the South Vietnam flag flown several times over the years, but have never seen the Communist all-Vietnam flag.
There was just a big controversy in Massachusetts when a local group displayed the Chinese “communist” flag next to a US flag. American Korean War veterans objected (though WWII vets should be happy since the KMT supported Japan) as did many of the local immigrant Chinese. The Falun Gong were behind some of the protests.
I explained to my mom (who lives across the street from the building) that it’s just the national flag of a country we have recognized for 30 plus years.
Similar thing happened here in Cleveland, come to think of it. The PRC flag was flown at the Chinese Cultural Memorial and there was a big stink. The Taiwan flag has flown there in the past, but I notice that the flagpole is bare nowadays.
Did you ask anyone? I am wondering if the flags don’t represent the flags of the nations of people who have attended the school (as foreign exchange students and immigrants). And those that attended (in an earlier day perhaps) may have originated in “South Vietnam” and thus requested such a flag.
I seriously doubt that would be the case. Quite a few of my fellow students at Monterey Peninsula College and University of California at Davis were fairly recent immigrants from Vietnam. Not a one of them preferred the current regime’s flag. The Vietnamese Student Association at both schools, as the VSA in many other schools across the US, used South Vietnam’s flag.
Related to this issue: At UCD, the students from the People’s Republic of China used that flag for their ceremonies and events. One group of PRC citizens did not participtate in any manner with them: students from Hong Kong. They had their own association and refused to use the PRC flag.
What they should do, they should all compromise by flying the Viet Cong flag. 
Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! The Viet Cong are going to win!
Well, the question is… what is the purpose of the flag display?
If it is a “list of all the flags in the world,” then sorry but the Southern Vietnamese flag doesn’t belong.
Lots of Republican Spaniards don’t consider the bicolor as their flag but until they can overturn the monarchy for the third time, they just get to wave their tricolor about… they don’t get to make other people wave it.
Why not? It’s obviously one of the flags of the world, and one use by a Vietnamese government; to wit, Government of Free Vietnam
:rolleyes: The flag of a government-in-exile?! Oh, come on!
I think it’s something like showing how multicultural the school is, or something like that.
I guess my question would be, unless there is a display of flags for educational purposes, why would flags be displayed in a school? And if the display is for educational purposes, the flags should be labeled, and each should be the current flag of an existing country.
That’s how it is at our boys’ school. The flags are for the country of origin of each foreign or foreign-born student, and are labeled. I know my flags pretty well, and each one is for an actual country.
It’s a multicultural-national pride-“My, aren’t we diverse” kind of thing.
What do you mean? The ROC government can arguably be called a government-in-exile by the US government for the time it recognized that government as the government of China. I’m just pointing out that the use of government-in-exile flags isn’t unknown.
As for “each should be the flag of a current country”: What’s wrong with showing the flags of former countries also? After all, they’re a part of history.