I like flags, and I like history, but how interesting can a ten minute video about the Chinese flags be? Me ten minutes later: oh, quite. Quite interesting.

China kept changing it's profile picture.

As mainland Chinese, we love the Blue Sky with a White Sun flag since that's one of the first official flag for the new Chinese government and Sun Yat-sen approved it. So sad is being controversial in China since that's still the flag of Taiwan despite the true meaning of the flag is to unite all Chinese people. Sometimes I even think that if there's no civil war, most Chinese would prefer this flag also.

but... Sun Yat-sen died in 1925. It was Chaing Kai-shek who overthrew the northern Warlords during the Northern Expedition

I wouldn't want to be a kid that has to draw the dragon flag under the Qing Dynasty

I'm Chinese and I can speak Mandarin and Cantonese. BTW your pronunciation of Chinese names are really good!

The KMT with the sun in the middle is so clean. I prefer it to the ROC flag.

I just researched these flags the other day for a D&D group - Dank je Hilbert voor het verrijken van mijn kennis

i speak chinese (mandarin) and min (one of the other languages in the south) got to say i'm really glad you pronounce kuomintang correctly, i was honestly really puzzled as to how you got the pronunciations! if you need my help on translations/pronunciations, just drop a comment! i also know malay and japanese

Absolutely love the attention to detail when pronouncing non-English names, other channels could learn a lot from your approach.

Man, it is a thrill to see my name in the credits on such a great video. Vexillology has always been a passion. Keep up the great work! Doei!

3:28 hmm yes... Wuhan

7:45 I see you use my flag of the Congo Free State. That must mean you are a fan of me, I knew it!

you actually did a very good job at pronouncing the names in mandarin and i was very surprised. I thought like many other youtubers you would pronounce the names not by the official pinyin pronunciation but by the "english pronunciation" of chinese (such as saying chiang kai-shek instead of jiang jie shi) and I was very surprised to hear the proper mandarin pronunciation, it is actually very close to how a native chinese speaker would sound, good job! Im also very happy that i found your channel, I love the content! Here is a subscriber from me!

The colors of the ROC flag in Chinese stands for "青天白日滿地紅", which means "clear blue sky, white sun, and red ground". I learned when I was a kid (80s) from my school teacher that the personification of the flag is to symbolize that peace and a bright future is obtained by the blood, sweat, and sacrifices of the people. However, it just means freedom, equality, and universal love (which Taiwan currently sort of has).

Pretty good job on the pronunciations. I've studied Mandarin for years and your attempts were some of the least ear destroying that I have heard from someone who has not studied the language.

2:50 it should be pronounced as Sun 'Y'at Sun, Y sound like 'yeah', not J sound what you tried to pronounce is zhong (中) ( Sun Zhong-shan (孫中山)) , not Yat逸 （孫逸仙， Sun Yat-sen ) He had different names, which is quite interesting, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Sun_Yat-sen

Very enjoyable video, nice work ! There are just a few historical mistakes I'd like to adress : 01:00 1860 was actually the final year of the second opium war. The flag was at that point only a naval ensign to differentiate civilian ships from the Chinese Imperial Navy. 02:29 Lu Haodong was not a commander of the Xinhai Revolution, he was actually executed by the Qing in 1895. Since he was nonetheless an early revolutionary, his flag was embraced by many later revolutionaries. 03:27 You probably meant Wuchang, not Wuhan (though the mix up is easily made) 04:18 When the Republic of China was founded in 1912, the Blue Sky White Sun Red Earth flag wasn't in use yet. The 5 Races flag (center) was used as a national flag, and the Iron Blood 18-star flag (left) became the army's flag, as you said. As Sun Yat-sen lost control of the Republic, that came under the influence of former Qing general Yuan Shikai, he organised a new revolution and adopted the Blue Sky White Sun Red Earth flag in 1917 as a rival government. 05:19 Sun Yat-Sen was already dead when the Northern Expedition took place, he died in 1925. The reigns of the Kuomintang passed to Chiang Kai-shek, who united China in 1928, replacing the 5 Races flag for the Blue Sky White Sun Red Earth flag. Modern Chinese history is very complicated, so it's understandable to make mistakes. Your mandarin pronounciation was quite good for someone who dosn't seem to be familiar with it. Anyway, good work, I subscribed :)

Your topics always exactly what I need, thanks!

I've always wanted to know when they picked up the fancy red flag.

Your mandarin pronunciation was great! Love that you go for accuracy and don't just 'wing it' like most other YTers

I was surpirsed at how well you pronounced the names in the video, when I saw the end and you said you had help, it made sense, I think that was very nice of you. Made it a lot easier to follow along.

Another great video! I always learn at least one thing from your vids and am always entertained.

You are one of the best history channels Hilbert, also when are you ever going to do another weimar republic video.

The five races flag reminds me of the old Legoland flag representing the 5 colors of lego bricks, before green and grey were introduced only difference being the lego flag was turned on the side and the placement of yellow and red was switched.

Great video!

what a brilliant channel. i share your love of language, flags, geography. the triple threat! cannot recommend your channel enough sir.

good to see someone appreciating history. good work.

Dope vid hilbert.

I am a bit late but goig to comment anyway, great video as always. Greetings from Bayern, Germany :)

Nice Content

Good learn video, it will def help me remember it!

What do you mean by mainland China?It's West Taiwan.

As a native Mandarin speaker myself, your pronunciation is brilliant! Greeting from Taiwan(Republic of China).

great job. my grandma from Manchuguo told me about these hard times and how they had to bow to different flags from one day to another.

2:24 the Xinhai rebellion started on October 10, 1911 (double ten day) February 12 is when the Qing dynasty officially abdicated. Fyi “Xinhai” is the name of the traditional calendar year in which the rebellion began.

Your pronunciation was fantastic, I'm about to start my 6th year of mandarin.

As a Chinese, I have to say you did a great video about the flags (I use VPN to watch if you are wondering). A few corrections though: 1. The first Opium War was in 1840 with the British and in 1860 was the second Opium War with the British and French. 2. We don't really use the phrase "The Second Sino-Japanese War", instead we use "Anti-Japanese War" which started in Sept.18, 1931. 3. I think there were a few other communist based flags used before this one today, but I'm not an expert in those. BTW, well done with the pronunciation!

The flag with the dragon was cool.

there are still 3 flags in China now too, China (5-star), Hong Kong (bauhinia) and Macau (lotus) , war is bad bad

Oh! Fun With Flags! Cool!

06:46 Anti-Communism? That didn't age well.

I do appreciate you awareness for Cantonese pronunciation ❤️

I liked the way you pronounce qing, I know Chinese mandarin since childhood and if I remember correctly you spoke with correct pronunciation...

Just the right content for a midnight binge.

Hello, I am Taiwanese🤣🇹🇼 Thank you for making this historical video ! I feel very good! ! 👍 Your Chinese pronunciation is very good ! ☺️ (發音很好 ! ）

I love how your pronunciation of the Chinese words. It wasn't entirely perfect but it was very good and close to the actual pronounciation. Keep up with the good work.

It's fun to see that you use the western/Cantonese spelling of sun Yat sun name, but pronounce it in mandarin 😝. Also, great pronunciation! Also, Chiang Kai Shiat is Jiang Jie Shi in mandarin, Zhong Zheng is his given name, so it's only used in very formal/ceremonial occasions, Jie Shi is his courtesy name, so it's more used by people .

Very impressive! Learned a lot about my own country's history, which is not even taught objectively in school.

The 5 races under one union flag looks really cool. A bummer the KMT abandonned it.

It took me a while to realise you are saying "thank you" in Cantonese at the end.

2:50 the way you say his name actually sounds like Cantonese

is hilbert looking at GR transcriptions for these chinese names? i think it might be better to look for the IPA or Wade-Giles instead for people not familiar with how chinese pinyin phonology and orthography works

8:08 What is he saying there? I'm sure it means "thank you", but I don't know what he is saying because there are no subtitles. I wonder if somebody could tell me?

When are you gonna do a video on the Civil and the flags from there?

There was actually a Republic of Taiwan flag for a very short time. It was a blue flag with a tiger on it. It was used after the Treaty of Shimonoseki when China gave Taiwan away to Japan. The Taiwanese started the Republic of Taiwan because they didn't want to be ruled by Japan but it only lasted until Japanese troops came and occupied Taiwan.

Fun fact that I just looked up: the Wuhan 18-star flag that became the army flag of ROC Beiyang government was changed to a 19-star one when it's used in that army. As someone mentioned, 18 starts meant the 18 'mainland' provinces (that were mostly Han dominated), but eventually ROC included much more than that. (I think I saw it in a museum that there were 22 provinces, plus minority regions that have more autonomy). People from those provinces that weren't included (especially the NE 3 provinces, which were considered Manchu heartland but by then already a lot of Han living there, including the Zhang family which would be the warlord government that got overthrown by the Nationalists). Hence they added the 19th star at the center, symbolizing the rest of the country (or China as a whole). And there was debate weather the 19th star should be larger (like the top left star of the modern Chinese flag) or equal size. Eventually equal size was adopted because people agreed with a more devolved government (or even federation, like many in the new world) as opposed to a French (and most of the European) style centralization.

the 5 races looks the best imo. dragon the coolest, but the 5 races looks clean and nice

I'm Taiwanese, and Chinese history is compulsory subject until high school here. Thanks for this interesting video, helped me a lot 'bout those flags(and understand those ironic countryball animations). 我是台灣人。中國歷史是到高中為止都一定會接觸到的內容。這集讓我更看得懂那些諷刺動畫，蠻有趣的。 俺は台湾人、中国歴史は高校まで必修のもの。この動画のおかげで、皮肉をもっと分かるようになりました。 Btw, I do speak Chinese and some Taiwanese (I'm a native speaker) , which are a little bit similar, and I think there's no problem with your pronunciation. 順帶一提，我會中文跟一點台語(跟你要問的有點像)，我覺得你的發音都OK喔~ ちなみに、台湾語（少しだけだが）と中国語を日常に使ってるが、発音に問題なしだと思うよ～

Hilbert, at the 3rd minute of your video, you placed the Republic of China flag next to a southern small island on the map, that is the Hainan island which all along belongs to the People Republic of China. Taiwan island is at the 4 o'clock location of the map. Please take note.

3:07 This is an anachronism, using the claimed borders of the PRC pairing it with the ROC flag. In fact, the claimed borders of the ROC until 1992 were vastly different, most importantly being the inclusion of Mongolia, and no Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Hilbert pronounced the words more accurate than I do, cause I only speak English and Cantonese . The way he pronounces Sun Yat-sen is like how I say it in Cantonese! Fun fact ,Sun Yat-sen came from Canton

You didn’t even talk about yuan Shikai’s Chinese empire flag nor did you use the beiyang government or the koumintang provinces please make video on yuan Shikai’s flag

Is “Dr Sheldon Cooper’s fun with flags” episodes

kudos to the pronunciation, its much better than other youtubers out there who absolutely butcher it, but still not quite the best though good enough compared to others

Hilbert, could you do a video on the history of Dutch Guiana/Suriname?

The image at 1:38 is in fact not a Tibetian chocolate advertisement. It's a collectible card which you got when you bought chocolate from a chocolate facturer which was based in Dresden, Germany. The company was producing chocolate and other sweets from 1870 to 1948, so it isn't a really good example for the flag been around even before 1862.

The pronunciation was great but there’s only one think I would comment on; most people call Sun Zhong Shan as Sun Yat Sen in English, they’re different names for the same person. It might confuse English speaking people. But in Cantonese we do say Sun Zhong Shan

2:35 tang actually means party in Chinese so you should call it the kuomin party.

The Qing flag was clearly the best one, imo. Aesthetic, beautiful, amazing use of colours.

2:48 I will say Lu Haodong and Sun Yat-sen were in the same rebel group. They knew each other well, and it was Sun Yat-sen who evangelized Lu Haodong. Sun Yat-sen founded the Revive China Society(興中會), and Lu Haodong helped establish its Hong Kong branch.

That’ the second opium war from 1856 to 1860. The (first) opium war is from 1840.

The map at 3:05 is PRC's map not ROC's map. One of the differences is that Mongolia was part of China's territory.

a mistake is that from 1912-1928 the Chinese flag is the 5 colour one,and in 1860 it is the second opium war,the first one is in 1840

Politics aside, I think ROC flag is one of the best looking flags ever for a country.

Chiang Kai Shek is known as Jiang Jie Shi in Mandarin, in addition to the Cantonese version you used.

You're one of the few people who really tries to get the pronunciation good. 👍

soooo wheres part 2?

I'm just curious, Buthan also uses a yellow flag with clawed dragon. Does that have any connections with the Chinese Qing dynasty flag?

Your pronunciation is very good, I can also improve my English pronunciation after watching your video! (Fans from China)😘

I like the 5-races flag the most

4:50 Couldve also just changed the stripes from horizontal to vertical

From 8:56...thats the nicest way to end a video, stay safe sir

I guess you can say we were “figuring things out” in 1911-1928

The founder of the ROC and KMT has a formal English name, Sun Yat-San. He is the only person regonised by both sides. His wife Song Qinglin was the vice-president of the PRC.

A bit lost at the end, which is the current flag? You finished with the gold hammer and sicle, but i thought it was the 5 gold stars on red ?????

3:33, 4:30 You mentioned the red flag of 18 golden stars, but actually you are showing the red flag of 19 golden stars. The difference is the star at the center. They added one star because the original 18 golden stars represented the 18 provinces of the China proper and excluded the 3 provinces of the northeast China. Here is the Wikipedia page for the flag, English version is not available though: zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%81%E5%85%AB%E6%98%9F%E6%97%97

xinhai REVOLUTION. not rebellion

3:29 * Sweating Intisifies *

3:28 those Provence show above is mostly correct but Anhui, next to Zhejiang and Hubei

Fun fact: We the Taiwanese sometimes calls Sun yet san loli con as a joke, B'cus the first time he met his 3rd wife she was only ten and first time met 4th wife she was still a one years old baby. And at that time something like this is totally normal.

The five races flag was also use by Manchuko (a Japanese puppet state during WW2).

Both red and yellow colors were seen as royal colors by ethnic Chinese(Han and Ming dynasties worshiped Red while Tang dynasty worshiped Yellow), blue is seen as royal color by Mongols, the Manchus are in between they had both yellow and blue as imperial colors but leaned more towards the yellow side.

hoe gaat het met jou hilbert

The Opium war in 1860 was the second opium war, not the first.

The flag at the farthest left of this video's thumbnail was the flag of the Qing Dynasty that was overthrown by the revolution that founded the Republic of China (which is now Taiwan [because it was displaced from mainland China by the communist insurgents who then founded the People's Republic of China]), while the one in the middle and one at the right were the two flags of the Republic of China (the one in the middle being its old one, and the one at the right: its new [currently still used by Taiwan]), and here's a fun fact: the Qing Dynasty wasn't even Han Chinese, but rather: a Manchurian founded, and Manchurian-led Dynasty that was founded after the Manchurians mounted a (sadly successful) insurrection against the Han Chinese-led Ming Dynasty.

It's so sad that China must be under such terrible state :(

most of us can get access to KZfaq with VPN. 👌

As a Chinese I love the flag of Taiwan now, and it’s the real China in my heart.