Wuhan uni puts red stickers on white chairs, apologises after people said it looked like 'Japanese flag'

Wuhan University was forced to apologise after a misunderstanding involving basic shapes and colours.

Graphic images

Wuhan University recently held its opening ceremony for graduate students, and organisers had a fun idea.

It organised the event so that students wearing different colours could sit in predetermined areas.

This would allow the event participants to form interesting shapes and images.

For example, students sitting in the centre of the arena formed a red heart on a white background, using students wearing red or white shirts.

Students seated slightly further back also formed the letters “W H U”, signifying the university.

Along the upper deck of the arena were people enthusiastically waving China’s flag, leaving little doubt about the patriotic nature of the event, the university, and the organisers.

Or so you might think.

Red (and white) flags

Eagle-eyed observers noted something "sinister" lurking right in front of everyone’s eyes.

It seems that several of the chairs during the event were marked by red circles on a white background, resembling the flag of Japan, which some claimed revealed the organisers’ secret pro-Japan sentiment.

According to Manya Koetse, founder of the Chinese social media observer site Whatsonweibo, conspiracy theorists seized on the images, accusing Wuhan University of harbouring pro-Japan sentiments.

The opening ceremony was on Sep. 6, just days after China held a massive Victory Day parade, commemorating the end of the Sino-Japanese war, a time when sentiment regarding Japan is at a noticeably low ebb.

Further illustrating this is the release of the movie “Dead To Rights”, a thriller about the 1937 Nanjing Massacre perpetrated by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army.

Fun with shapes

Wuhan University, on Sep. 7, released a statement clarifying the situation.

To achieve the human-based graphics in its opening ceremony, the organisers had used simple shapes and colour combinations to direct participants to the correct seats.

The statement, as reported by Sina, said that the organising committee had used different shapes, such as circles and five-pointed stars, in various colours, such as red and yellow, on different coloured chairs, in this case white and blue chairs.

But it had not foreseen the issue of placing red circles on white chairs, which they said had “caused misunderstanding”.

The university said that they “deeply apologise for this, and will pay more attention to details and improve our work rigour in the future”.

Top image via @manyapan/x and China Unveiled/X