[Yonhap/Incheon City]
[Yonhap/Incheon City]

A Liberation Day commemorative banner hung by Incheon City at the rear entrance of its city hall was taken down just two days after it went up, after an online controversy erupted over what many said was an upside-down South Korean flag. The dispute spread rapidly after Super Junior member Kim Hee-chul left a comment on a related social media post.

According to Incheon City on Sunday, the city put up the banner near a crosswalk at the city hall's rear entrance on Thursday, bearing the phrase "The 81st Liberation Day — the day we reclaim the light."

The banner depicted an independence activist vigorously waving a Taegukgi with both hands. Online users quickly raised concerns, pointing out that the red and blue positions of the taegeuk symbol appeared reversed and that the arrangement of the four trigrams — geon, gon, gam and ri — looked inverted.

The controversy drew wider attention when Kim Hee-chul commented on a related social media post with a Korean expletive expressing disbelief.

In response, Incheon City said the flag had not been produced incorrectly, explaining that the image was meant to depict the Taegukgi as seen from below while an independence activist waved it, rendered as a flat, two-dimensional image. The city maintained that the basic form of the flag, including the placement of the trigrams, was not in error.

However, the city decided to remove the banner voluntarily, citing the possibility that residents might perceive the flag as genuinely inverted.

"We failed to pay close enough attention to how it would appear as a flat image," a city official said. "Going forward, we will review materials more carefully to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding."

Meanwhile, Kim Hee-chul addressed the situation directly after his comment was interpreted by some as carrying political significance. "Many people are expressing political concern over the flag issue, but regardless of left or right, isn't it our country's national flag?" he said. "I hope my fans won't get caught up in this, but the issue of hanging the Taegukgi upside down is not a left-or-right statement. I don't think I deserve either praise or criticism just for having a sense of civic duty — it's something any Korean would do."

He added, "This has nothing to do with left or right. It's something even kindergartners know, so it's not worth praising or criticizing. The fact that even foreign fans know the correct orientation of the Taegukgi makes this all the more baffling."

The positioning of the taegeuk symbol and the four trigrams on the Taegukgi is governed by South Korea's National Flag Act and flag-display guidelines issued by the Ministry of Interior and Safety. Experts note, however, that illustrations or photographs depicting a flag being waved or flipped — captured from a particular angle — can look different from the standard orientation depending on the viewer's perspective, underscoring the importance of using designs in public promotional materials that minimize the potential for misunderstanding.


rainbow@heraldcorp.com