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Kyoto University (Japan)

Last modified: 2023-06-03 by zachary harden
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Tokyo University of Science
image by Nozomi Kariyasu, 25 February 2015

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The Flag

The website of Kyoto University [the national one], has this to say regarding their flag:

The university song and flag were established in 1940. As an answer to the "Imperial Rescript for young students" from the Emperor in 1939, the lyrics of the song and the flag design were selected from pieces written and designed by the students of the Kyoto Imperial University, as it was known in those days.

Now we raise the university flag on the following occasions, among others.

  1. Entrance Ceremony
  2. Graduation Ceremony
  3. Commencement Ceremony
  4. Ceremony to award long standing employees
  5. Ceremony to award professor emeritus
  6. Exchanging name cards at the beginning of the new year

And the same page shows the flag. Two photographs on the same page show what we would consider the reverse of the flag. This suggests that the flag may indeed be sinister hoisted.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 22 March 2008

It is either the obverse or the reverse.
Colin Dobson, 22 March 2008

No, I'm looking for something like dexter side or sinister side. It's the position relative to the hoist I'm after, not relative to the viewer. You can't very well argue that since you're always shown the "reverse", it must be the "obverse".
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 22 March 2008

Alright, thanks for the clarification, I see you mean the edge rather than the side, as it were.
Colin Dobson, 22 March 2008

For the record, here are three images of this flag shown on the university's English language web site (http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/english/euni_int/e01_logo/flag.htm - link no longer active). The first image is that of the flag itself, although the example shown here seems to be showing the effects of age and hard usage. The remaining two images are a black and white photograph taken on February 11, 1940, showing the ceremony at which the flag and the university song were officially adopted; given the date, I would have thought that the university authorities might have had other things on their mind.
The second image is a color photograph showing the university flag being displayed at the graduation ceremony (or in US usage, the Commencement Ceremony) held at the University Sports Stadium on March 24, 2004.
Ron Lahav, 23 March 2008

Kyoto University has an orange flag.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 25 February 2015