Developing intercultural communicative skills

Handout 3


Handout 4

Hammer and Sickle
The former USSR (The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) used a hammer and
sickle symbol since 1917, where the hammer represents the proletariat and the sickle is a traditionally a symbol for the peasantry. The combination of these two
symbols represents the unity of workers and peasants. Even after the collapse of Soviet Union, the hammer and sickle motif has endured as a universal symbol of communism. There are several other socialist countries are using the hammer and sickle symbol. For instance, the Chinese Communist Party has the symbol of hammer and sickle on their flag. The handle of the sickle of Chinese Communist Party is shorter and rounder in comparison to that of the USSR. Vietnam's Communist Party puts the hammer and sickle in the center of their flag. North Korea also applies a hammer and sickle symbol on the Workers Party flag. However, they also add a brush symbol, which represents the intellectuals.
Interestingly, in some countries the hammer and sickle symbol is illegal, such as,
Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, and Indonesia. Many of them have laws that clearly state that a hammer and sickle symbol stands for “totalitarian and evil ideology." A publicly displayed sickle and hammer, as a symbol of communism, is considered a criminal offense.

Yin Yang Symbol
“The wisdom of the I-Ching, whose origin lies in the distant era of the third
millennium B.C. According to tradition, it was the Emperor Fu-hsi who established a system of signs to record orally transmitted wisdom” (Frutiger,1989, p. 58). The Yin Yang symbol, coming from Taoist philosophy, has had a far-reaching influence in human culture. Its meanings contain the wisdom of Chinese ancient philosophers. The fundamental essence of the Eastern view of life is that “the world is constantly changing and full of contradictions”. Yin and Yang represent two sides of the universe, opposite each other. Yang represents the positive, masculine, and active side; whereas Yin represents the negative, feminine, and passive side. The first meaning of the Yin Yang symbol is that Yin and Yang cannot exist independently without each other. They only exist because of each other. They exist because of their opposite side and inside of each other. The other meaning of Yin Yang is that both of them are energies and they have a mutual conversion between them. The universe is full of Yin Yang energy and without such energy, there no life would exist in the universe.
From the appearance of the Yin Yang symbol, we see the black swirl has a white
dot and the white swirl has a black dot. “The truest yang is the yang that is in the yin”. The Yin Yang symbol expresses the relationship that “exists between opposing but interpenetrating forces that may complete one another, make each
comprehensible, or create the conditions for altering one into the other”.