Representing the five lodges of the Hung Society, the flags of the seasons were present in the Tiandihui initiation ceremony. The flag shown is the ‘ji’ which is a collective representation of all the seasons. Apart from this, the flags comprised the flags of ‘chun’ or spring, ‘xia’ or summer, ‘qui’ or autumn and ‘dong’ or winter. These flags, except for those representing autumn and winter, were part of the secret society paraphernalia found in the William Stirling Collection. William George Stirling was the Assistant Protector of Chinese in Singapore from 1921 to 1931.
