lag of Miyagi Prefecture
The prefecutral flags of Mie and Miyagi align almost perfectly. Both flags employ the Japanese Hiragana Letter "Me." Both prefectures are in Honshu with Miyagi in the north at a European Latitude and Mie in the south at an African Latitude.
Miyagi Prefecture is serendipitously famous because of the movie The Karate Kid 1984 with Ralph Macchio. In this movie Mr. Miyagi is a Japanese-American teacher who helps an Italian-American kid from New Jersey adjust to a new neighborhood in California.
Mie is famous in Japan as the proverbial Jerusalem of the Shinto Faith. The high temple dedicated to Amateratsu the Sun Goddess is located there. Arguably this is the holiest of holy Shinto Shrines.
Flag of Mie Prefecture
Miyagi Prefecture is famous for Japan's Celebration of Tanabata. This holiday takes place sometime in the summer, usually July. The Tanabata Celebration is based on an ancient Chinese tale of two star crossed lovers - a high society sky prin
cess and a lowly farmer. Basically two stars become visible on opposite sides of the Milky Way - Vega & Altair. The farmer and princess become forbidden lovers by the Gods - except on one date: Tanabata.Coincidentally in the most recent version of the Karate Kid 2010 with Jackie Chan, they retell a "Tanabata Story" in an 'original' Chinese form during a play. But during Japan's Tanabata they decorate and write wishes on paper, then hang them on bamboo stems. It kind of looks like a "Japanese Bamboo-Mas Tree," but without presents.
The odd parallel is that Mie is a central point in the worship of the sun which is a part of our solar system, while Miyagi is a prime nexus point in the appreciation of our neighboring stars -Vega and Altair which are stars in our Galaxy - the Milky Way. Coincidentally both Vega and Altair are rather close to our Sun.
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