Ulalume
tart of darkness
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2009
- Messages
- 3,340
- Location
- Not Texas
I've seen Nazi flag designs featured in clothes sold in boutiques in both Korea and Japan, but it must be said they're very rare. I'm also not convinced they're used in complete ignorance; everyone knows it's a Nazi symbol but - given the geographic gulf and the populace not having had much direct experience with either Nazism or Judaism - they would reason that that isn't all the swastika - Nazi or otherwise - can represent. The Nazi flags themselves arrived in East Asia through the late-punk ascetic of the 80s and so the symbol they feature has passed through a number of appropriations already.
A friend went to work for (a large, famous) software company. His first day at work he was very shocked to see so many programmers had swastikas as screensavers. The reason became clear - many of the programmers were originally from India, so to them the symbol only had positive associations. He says it took some time to get used to it, though!
I had a similar experience upon entering a Buddhist temple, once - some of the statues had swastikas in the "third eye" area, which is something I couldn't help but associate with the Manson family. Even though I knew it had nothing to do with that, I wasn't able to really shake that association. It did teach me something about how powerfully we can react to symbols, however they are used.