“The whole world lives together in New York. And we use a lot of poly bags.”

[photo by Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times]

There is apparently a century-plus-old dispute between Japan and South Korea regarding the Dokdo Islands. Chang-Duck Jeon, president of the Korean Dry Cleaners Association, has been trying to raise awareness of it by having dry-cleaning bags printed with this image and slogan, selling them mostly to dry cleaning businesses in New York City.

“It was a way to speak out,” Mr. Jeon reasoned. “What’s ours is ours.”

The islands, known as Takeshima in Japan, are not as big of an issue for the Japanese-American community in the city. From the New York Times:

“The conflict doesn’t really come up,” he said. A spokeswoman for the Japanese Embassy in Washington said she was having a hard time finding someone to comment on the dispute, and she referred a reporter to the Web site of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. There, “Japan’s Inalterable Position on the Status of Takeshima” is spelled out in 10 languages.