What Happened to the Old Thai Flag?

Thailand used to have an elephant on their flag - what changed? Find out in this video!
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[@tokayrepublic]

2:19 symbol of Chakri dynasty pretty straightforward chakra + trident(tree in Thai)= Chakri

[@spaghettith176]

According to Thai parliament museum Rama VI *(Not IV) changed a elephant flag to bicolour flag in the year 1916. The reason for changed the flag in the video is not recorded, but there is a record of him said: “ When look from far distance, we can't tell the difference between the national flag and a merchant flag. ” In the year 1917, Rama VI also changed the flag to tricolour flag, with blue colour in the flag represented monarchy, but its didn't represented monarchy, because Rama VI was born in Saturday, because Saturday in thai culture mostly represented with purple or black.

[@erni2619]

Im pretty sure the prevailing and more generally accepted reasons as to why we transitioned to a tricolor flag is: 1.) We wanted to "westernise" our flag and be seen similar to or treated as equals among the westerners 2.) Red, White, Blue has been chosen in order to match with the colors of the countries in the Triple Entente alliance; the side of the war Thailand joined 3.) Doing 1.) and 2.) would show to the nations of the world, our commitment to the cause of the Entente alliance and facilitate the attainment of Thailand's seat in the League of Nations 4.) We wanted to be seen as a "trading partner" not "another Asiatic country to colonize" I mean, pretty much the same reason some totally not fascist dictator wanted to change our country's name from Siam to Thailand. The zeitgeist for a long time has been: Westernization = Modernization Anyhow interesting video, but I dont think I can agree with everything said in your video especially the bit about Rama IV. Like others have oointed out I think you meant Rama VI. Source: เราก็คนไทยจ้าา (im thai)

[@chicho4802]

As Thai I notice that you made a some errors in this video : 1. The king that change the flag to western style (include bicolor one)and born in Saturday(which actually associated with color purple and black but king just chose blue as his colors no one know why, maybe purple and black didn’t look that good)is “Rama VI(sixith)” , Rama IV was born in Thursday(orange) that why my university “king Mongkut’s university” use orange as university colors 2. 2:57 white elephant is call”chang phueak” not “Chang samkan(it literally mean important elephant in a bit descriptive way)”

[@christopherellis2663]

Cakra wheel ( circle) Kwə-ķwlos ( kwl- turn) The old Lao flag was red with white elephants and a parasol

[@hessanscounty3592]

The Royal navy ensign still has the old elephant Ariravata on it in a red circle in the middle of the modern Tri-Rong flag. I think a cool modern National design would be the naval Ensign, but instead of using the elephant in regalia, instead use the smaller elephant in the chakram from the 1817-1855 flag.

[@philltheotherguy1868]

CGP Grey got to them 😔

[@manusongkul2075]

I am almost certain Rama IV had long passed in 1916. You might've meant Rama VI, his grandson.

[@stormshadow5283]

The reason why the white elephant is the symbol of monarchy in India and SE Asia is because it is a representation of Airavata, the white elephant of Devaraja (King of the Devas) Indra. Therefore whoever sees or owns a white elephant is said to become a great ruler/king/emperor etc.

[@andreylucass]

Wow. The old one was definitely in the top 10 most beautiful flags in the world.

[@prechabahnglai103]

Elephant is hard to draw but very recognizable.

[@rasapplepipe]

Thailand and Ivory Coast should both put elephants on their flags so they don't get confused with other national ensigns.

[@jackyex]

The goverment of Ivory Coast is very angry that you're not using the proper name for the Ivory coast in their official language.

[@aqua9420]

@@jackyexCôte d'ivoire

[@Tsukonin]

Meh, unlile Thailand, most Sub-Saharan countries don't have a long history and are mostly arbitrary and recently european-made (1960s and 1970s). There is no ivoirien ethnic group. So adding an elephant would look like cheap way to make Côte d'Ivoire more distinct from its copypasted neighbours than it really is. They can still use it in football/soccer although elephants are almost extinct in the country, so not a great symbol and not a good look.

[@rasapplepipe]

@@aqua9420 no it's Costa de Marfil.

[@rasapplepipe]

@@Tsukonin most national animals are endangered many are extinct some are fictitious. The rest of your argument is crap.

[@Urlocallordandsavior]

Nice Thai pronunciation mate. -from a Thai speaker

[@LearnRunes]

The elephant was easily recognisable as Thai. Their current flag is okay but easy to misidentify if you don't know your flags well.

[@erni2619]

What would our flag possibly be misidentified as??😂 It's not like 🇮🇹🇲🇽🇮🇪🇦🇩🇹🇩🇷🇴🇲🇨🇸🇬🇵🇱🇮🇩🇸🇮🇸🇰🇷🇺🇳🇱🇷🇸 Maybe costa rica? Which despite the same color scheme and pattern looks wildly different when compared to the Thai flag 🇨🇷🇹🇭 Also kinda helps that (no offense) Costa Rica is much less popular country compared to Thailand

[@enumachristopher]

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[@jackielpowell]

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[@nathanielvera.0]

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[@rexblade504]

Honestly does anyone actually like flags that follow vexillology than ones that don't? Like I feel like unique detailed flags are much better than a simple bi/tri color. I feel like this is something reddit users started to feel superior to others and it got out of hand.

[@More_Row]

I don’t really care either way, i do like straight lines though

[@spyrosvassilakis4212]

The old Indo-European word shown in 1:46 looks suspiciously like the Greek word κύκλος (circle)....

[@than_th_icbm3687]

I need to fix something The king IV jomklao Died before the change in1916 And the king V juljomklao died in 1910 So this change was happen in reign of king VI mongkutklao in1916

[@baconplays5777]

Can you do a video about hellfire pass? I wana know more about the giant snake that ate the japanese men in the caves while the british bombed the railway that was finished in 17 days

[@bauer9101]

My mum is Thai but seems to know next to nothing about Thailand’s history. Thanks for this.

[@copter2000]

I'm Thai and I seem to know next to nothing about Thai's history before '90s. They never teach/talk about modern Thai history when I was still a student.

[@bauer9101]

@@copter2000 it’s strange as Thailand has a rich and interesting history. Its story should be told and taught to its people. It’s where you have come from.

[@erni2619]

It's not really taught in our national curriculum, and it's not too difficult to see why. A lot of history from the Franco-Siamese war onwards lends to quite a lot of questions that can be controversial. Why did the monarch at the time not have to foresight to strengthen the army? Why did we have to give away national territory to foreigners? Why did we not end slavery earlier? Why did we need to force a revolution in 1932? Why was there this coup, that coup...etc. Why were we unable to fully reform to a democratic state? Then 1976 incident at Thammasat university and a whole lot of other controversial history มันไม่ได้ส่งเสริมภาพพจน์ที่ดีกับพระมหากษัตริย์และทหาร😂

[@bauer9101]

@@erni2619 interesting but still I don’t think any of that should be ignored. I’m British but we were taught about slavery and the Empire. Germans learn about the holocaust.

[@aleeeeexx1078]

Well I can you that if you study the thai history. You will see that thai people are just migrants from china who settled in the khmer empir. They stolen manu cultures from many of their neighbouring countries such as loas cambodia and Myanmar. Infact, all ancient stone temples in Thailand like hin phimai and phnom rung are all khmer temples.

[@koppadasao]

Elephant forever!

[@caseclosed9342]

I thought a white elephant was a game you play during office Christmas parties…

[@KangaKucha]

IT FIGURES! 😊

[@chiron14pl]

Thailand is dominantly Buddhist. In Buddhism, the wheel signifies the Wheel of Dharma, the cyclical nature of Buddhas incarnating to teach Dharma to people

[@stormshadow5283]

Yea the same thing which basically is from Hinduism. The aum, chakra and Swastika all have their meaning and origin in Hinduism but later appropriated into Buddhism because the original practitioners of Buddhism in India were simultaneously Hindus. They were Buddhist only in their relation to the Sangha while in the eyes of society they belong to the Varna and kula (clan/lineage) into which they were born. The "wheel" doesn't signify the "Wheel of Dharma", it is called Dharmachakra, meaning it is the figurative representation of Dharma itself.

[@lwysparagon8109]

Nope, in this case "chakra" means the real weapon used by Hindu god Vishnu signifying the supreme power over the whole nation. Same chakra symbol still used by the Royal Thai army whether alone or on the red flag. What you said is the "Dharma chakra" which has distinctive appearance than Vishnu's Chakra.

[@stormshadow5283]

@@lwysparagon8109 Vishnu wields the chakra to preserve Dharma.... There is only one Dharmachakra.... Ofc the figurative representations would differ according to culture.

[@PunishedKrab]

“Mommy, what happened to the Elephant Land flag? All I see is knockoff Costa Rica”

[@markustarkki8725]

The former flag of Laos used to be a three-headed white elephant under an umbrella on a white field!

[@lwysparagon8109]

Not sure when did that flag invented but as I've read it should be around the time France ruled Indochina and Laos which is definitly later than the Thai elephant flag adoption.

[@roallposselt4527]

I think th chakra flag is definetely the coolest

[@user-cr3pn7rk2v]

A variant of the elephant flag is used as the Thai naval flag FYI

[@wholewheatcracker3561]

Hey Hilbert you should do a video on the Mediterranean Lingua Franca/Sabir, a sort of pidgin that existed from around the Middle Ages to the 19th century that was used as a sort of trading language in the Mediterranean. It’s interesting to me and there are very few KZbin videos about it, and none that are very good quality, I think it would be right up your alley

[@herkus8044]

Ily hilbert ❤❤

[@MrAllmightyCornholioz]

BUDDHA BLESS THAILAND

[@PatSen]

3:20 it’s linked to Airavat, the celestial white elephant. All references to white elephants in Hinduism is to Airavat. Thailand also gets it from the same narrative of Airavat. Laos also used Airavat on its flag.

[@theranredguardist1949]

What happened to the old Georgian flag🇬🇪

[@minetaab]

It's Rama VI not Rama IV who change it the red white red.

[@EdbertWeisly]

The background is Austria Hungary

[@Shaden0040]

I like the elephant but a white elephant is fine doesn't matter what they could have done to make sure that whether it's upside down or not it doesn't matter they just do the current flag in the red strip put white elephants all across the red strep on the top up right side up and on the bottom red strip put elephants upside down so if it gets flipped upside down it still looks the same. one of the things that I like about having a flag that's differential and can be viewed upside down and you know it's upside down is the American flag which symbolizes writes it up patriotism but when it's upside down it means distress SOS so if you put the American flag upside down which they did after Katrina all over the place they flew the flag upside down indicating to stress we need help. unfortunately I don't think the bush is understood that. because they were never Boy Scouts

[@D.S.handle]

I like the modern flag. It is quite decent.

[@DJPJ.]

I prefer the Thailand flag with elephant inside chakra.

[@jokerpandroidc9807]

the one that introduced the elephant in the middle of the wheel goes hard

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

They should come up with a new flag that uses a white elephant on top of the current flag, but make the elephant less detailed than in the old flags.

[@lwysparagon8109]

Making an animal picture in graphic form (less details) will definitely be a cartoon character which does not glorify the pride of national flag. Flag with only color codes and simple pattern alignment is the correct way to go. People can easily make their own flag in any form and it's recognized by every parties, friend or foe.

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

@@lwysparagon8109 That makes no sense at all.

[@lwysparagon8109]

@@MatthewTheWanderer That's your opinion solely.

[@erni2619]

We already have the flag of the Royal Thai navy for that

[@SchokoAprikose]

Finally something for all of us paradox players 🎉

[@ligayamatira2293]

What Happened to the Old Philippine Flag?

[@magnustheidamey4924]

Bring back the elephant

[@mattparsons6813]

They should put the elephant back on the flag.

[@Planeet-Long]

I miss the old Siamese flag, I often see it in old photographs and works about Siam, it's a really recogniseable flag.

[@floridapanhandling3136]

Bring back the white elephant!!

[@erni2619]

We still have it as the flag of our navy, so there's that 😂

[@siyacer]

yep

[@sdeepj]

The colonial flag of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, has an elephant in the coat of arms. Cameroon had an elephant on its flag when it was a German colony

[@Jobe-13]

Get well soon.

[@HenryThree]

The loss of Thailand's magnificent elephant flag is the one of the greatest tragedies of modern history and shall be mourned for generations. Despite Thailand never being colonized, its glorious flag being usurped by boring European stripey bullshit is among the worst colonialist atrocities.

[@MrAllmightyCornholioz]

To be fair, striped flags are easier to represent than a complex one. Try to draw that with your hand all day and you'd wish you had a simplier flag.

[@yegirish]

@@MrAllmightyCornholioz I’ve never really understood this argument. Who has to regularly draw national flags, much less do so multiple times a day?

[@MrAllmightyCornholioz]

@@yegirish What argument? It's an opinion.

[@relaxingnaturevideos1203]

Like most other countries they have been colonized. It’s called the new world order.

[@phambinhan17]

​@@yegirish simple flags are easier to standardized.

[@rattheninja2877]

Cersei Lannister: “I wanted those elephants”

[@Praise_Gilgamesh]

Comment for the algorithm

[@PatSen]

This 2:00 total fictional use of PIE as the antecedent of the word is such an intellectually dishonest heist that western academia piles of anything to do with Indic civilisation. Hilbert, in all his naïveté, says the ‘it comes from the original PIE…’. Now please understand this: there is no language called PIE, there has never been such a word. All of it was conjured as a ‘possible’ bridge language. No one in real life has ever used that word. On the other hand, chakra has been used in Sanskrit. Yet, the west will continue to pretend as if there was a PIE word. Look at the certainty with which Hilbert said that. There was no doubt in his mind that the origin of chakra is in PIE. It’s not, simply because PIE has never existed in real life. It’s a manufactured bridge language, cooked up in the European universities. Never has even one word of PIE been ever found in any document, seal, tablet, scroll, parchment. Never. Yet, it’s projected as a certainty. It’s remarkable in its dishonesty, this whole business of PIE. On the other hand, it would be ok to say, “the word chakra is used in Sanskrit, and it probably has words emerging from the same root that is found in Latin/Romance languages/germanic languages, etc; and linguists have created a possible root word in PIE called….”. Now, that would be an accurate articulation, honest in its intent. But you won’t ever find any western academic letting go of the opportunity to commit this subterfuge where Indic culture matters. They are intellectually reluctant, to even think for a moment that their languages might have come from Sanskrit, from a heathen land of beastly black heathens. That’s where all of it comes from. They *had to* invent a fictitious language and subsume all their languages there. In one fell swoop all direct connection to the beastly black heathens removed. You need to parse through the examples in the books and papers published since 1860, to see this pattern. The pattern leaps to the eye if one cares to look at it. But the moment someone from India points this out, they are summarily dismissed as ‘conspiracy theory’. No one looks up what PIE actually is.

[@4rumani]

Least insane Indian

[@thefolder3086]

As a Thai person, pls bring the old one back

[@fanwtn5124]

They are cool and classical for sure. But, imagine you are a kid forces to draw that on paper in middle school 😂 ain’t no way

[@thefolder3086]

@@fanwtn5124 who said u have draw one lol I mean how does Bhutan do it?

[@jonnejaaskelainen]

I will be the contrarian and vote for the 1916 flag. I call it the "Double Austria".

[@trunkage]

'A Flag we know in a Flaggy sense' This expert terminology is why I keep coming back.

[@ESMAVLT]

5:00 Actually this story happens in king Rama VI reign (1910-1925). 5:46 Flag of Kingdom of Lan Xang (Laos). 😄

[@DuangRungsaengchan]

Wanted to appear civilized like other civilized western nations at the time.

[@rod9829]

Why is Austria on the background of the thumbnail?

[@lwysparagon8109]

Rama VI (6th) "not" Rama IV (4th) who changed the flag and sent the contingent to France. This is why people has discarded the Roman numerical system and adopted the Arabic instead.

[@revolution1237]

So, to simplify, the series "What Happened to the Old [insert country here] Flag" can be summarized as, "Why most countries gotta let go of their distinctive, fly flags?"

[@puppetguy8726]

6:10 Thai soldiers didn't have time to enter combat before the armistice

[@sizanogreen9900]

elephant. I like the last one. We have to few fanzied up flags.

[@thomasholland6291]

Jealous of all of those flags. Elephant for the win.

[@thomasholland6291]

Og elephant

[@kxm4894]

Elephant flag is cool. Hope Wales never change their flag.

[@MrWongnawa]

As a Thai, I prefer the elephant flag. So much more character and unique. Current striped flag is very similar to Costa Rica.

[@aleeeeexx1078]

Your country likes to steals other nations culture 😔

[@4rumani]

Same pattern as the older Costa Rican flag 🇨🇷 with inverted colors

[@micahistory]

last time I was this early, it was Siam

[@proudproudly-ke7pk]

This comment is for all Thai people. I know that if you can read this thing->ยา

[@allanalopez1756]

I think what you thought about the flag upside down was wrong I think he understood as similar to the United States understands that the flag is upside down and it means is the countries in distress four civil unrest ❤❤❤❤

[@alansmithee8831]

Hello Hilbert. The old flag was seen as a white elephant, due to inversion issues. Would they be too thick skinned to reinstate the pachyderm? Alternatively, was it a weight off their flagging minds? Who does not have sympathy for a white elephant? Did you hear the story of Toung Taloung? As for Blue day, I only ever heard of Monday, or Happy Monday, depending which Manchester band you listened to. How did it feel, to make this like you did, jokingly? Would you think "Yippee, yippee, aye, aye eh!" if they got the elephant flags out? I doubt the vote would be a Thai. Ye Siam being silly, but you started it, wheelie you did. Time to Chakra towel in now, I am flagging myself.

[@Jobe-13]

Why do countries abandon their unique detailed cool flags.

[@AlOstosman]

Because they were colonized, wether it be physical or mental colonization or both

[@lmonk9517]

@@AlOstosman what about european countries? lots of them dumbed down their epic flags and have boring tricolours. that's right it isn't colonisation but rather socialism that is to blame.

[@jonoc3729]

​@@AlOstosman Wrong, its because a flags purpose is to be seen clearly, most european countries used elaborate coats of arms of their royal families asmthe national symbol, but they changed to more simple flags in order to distinguish them more easily.

[@Yes-qj4bi]

@@jonoc3729 it was still obvious in difference

[@MicaiahBaron]

@@lmonk9517Ah yes, brain rot 101 "Anything I don't like must be socialism".

[@natashatercera8536]

First

[@wan1edguy382]

420th like

[@newthana131]

*Rama 6*

[@skysthelimitvideos]

Bring back the elephant 🐘:(

[@user-lo5rd5vm7h]

ÆÖmsè

[@ArnsteinTrany]

The current flag is very easily recognizable, and easy to draw, so it gets my vote.

[@Yes-qj4bi]

Short answer: Because countries like to use lame modern flags that are stripped