Last modified: 2016-04-05 by klaus-michael schneider
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Here goes the story of how you should fold the portuguese flag
to have it properly folded. First of all, unlike the
US flag, the end
result is not a triangle, but it’s a square containing the arms, which
should give you a pretty good idea of the procedure right away.
Jorge Candeias, 19 Dec 1999
There might not be a universal protocol to fold the portuguese
flag, after all. The fact is that one of the handover ceremonies in
Macao consisted of the exit of the
Governor from his official residence and consequent lowering of the flag.
This was also a military ceremony, but the flag was folded differently.
In this image you can see Gen. Rocha
Vieira holding a folded portuguese flag.
The early stages of the folding aren’t apparent from the final result
but it’s obvious that the last parts that were folded were the upper
and lower edges of the flag. This is in total contradiction to what
I saw in the tranfer ceremony. So the only conclusion I can get to is
that apparently there is no universally accepted protocol to fold the
portuguese flag, after all. Anyway, the images bellow stand as one of
the possible used ways to fold the flag.
Jorge Candeias, 21 Dec 1999
To do everything properly you need 4 people, one guy for each side of
the flag. They start by opening the flag horizontally with the obverse
facing down. Then they fold the upper third of the flag’s height…
Jorge Candeias, 19 Dec 1999
and the lower third of the flag’s height. A side note to say that
this may be the other way around — I didn’t take a good look at it.
Jorge Candeias, 19 Dec 1999
In any case, the next step it to unite the hoist to the fly, folding the
flag in half the length.
Jorge Candeias, 19 Dec 1999
Finally, a tricky deed. You see, if you fold the flag again in half,
the shield stays off-centered in the final result (1/3 is not equal to 3/8,
only close). This doesn’t seem to happen, so a small fold in the hoist
must happen before that “halfing”. I saw the soldiers folding the sleeve,
but I couldn’t see if a part of the flag itself was folded together with
it. It has to be done, but I don’t know exactly how.
Jorge Candeias, 19 Dec 1999
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