In my latest defense of how infrequently I update this blog: I actually did write a whole long reflection on my adjustment to working at my new branch here in Gwanggyo and the process of letting go of a lot of the anger I had about my previous job. It ended up being, well...very angry, and really specifically critical of select individuals, and also went on for just a stupidly long time, so I elected not to post it. Then I just sorta forgot.
Winter is chugging along slowly, sometimes cold, but most of the time tolerable enough that I get to laugh at all of my American friends and coworkers who aren't as well adjusted to the season. It's a good season to spend time indoors, so a couple weeks ago, Chloe and I went to the National Museum of Korea!
Hell yeah, learning 'bout stuff!
Korean history goes back thousands of years and is immensely complicated yet fascinating. The National Museum has artifacts dating back thousands of years and covers every period of human settlement on the peninsula since the Paleolithic era. I'm not going to dive into all of that here because a) I will lose whatever readership I have maintained up to this point and b) I am perhaps the least qualified expert on Korean history perhaps on the planet Earth. I highly recommend the National Museum, but the surprise highlight of our trip was an impromptu stop at the Hangul Museum located in the same area.
This book represents, in my view, one of the most inspiring innovations in history
In the past few months I've greatly increased my effort to learn Korean and have been studying regularly for an hour or so a day. I was motivated to learn primarily so I could converse with my girlfriend, as well as her family, in their own language, but ever since my first day in Korea I've been fascinated with the history of the Korean alphabet, also known as 한글 (pronounced Hangul).
In the beginning, there was the Word - Dan Simmons
In the 15th century, the Korean language was primarily written using characters from the classical Chinese alphabet. This caused a few difficulties, mainly because the Korean language is fundamentally very different from Chinese, so many of the characters were inadequate for transcribing the words. In addition, classical Chinese is very complicated to learn, so only the wealthy could afford the time and education to master it. This left a huge portion of lower-class citizens illiterate, causing a great deal of hardship; for example, warnings about the spread of disease often went unheeded as the poor were unable to read the notices.
King Sejong (also known as Sejong the Great) was dissatisfied with this injustice and, together with the Hall of Worthies (the royal research institute at the time) decided to create an entirely new alphabet which would be simple for the common man to learn in a very short time. Hangul, the new writing system, was able to perfectly reflect the consonant and vowel sounds of the Korean language. It was designed for simplicity, and was indeed so easy to learn that a saying at the time translates thus: "A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days."
The consonants of Hangul are modeled after the shape your mouth and throat make when you pronounce them because, I'm not kidding, this alphabet makes almost too much sense
I know this is kinda fact-heavy and I'm not making much of an effort to be funny in this post, but there is something in this story that feels very familiar. It feels like the sort of thing that only happens in fiction - the wise ruler who spends his life doing something that specifically benefits the common people. And if that did happen in fiction, who would be the villains? Probably the rich upper-class who didn't want their position marginalized by allowing the common folk to read the way they could? Maybe the next act of the book is when they oppose the promulgation of the language, maybe even banning it outright, so as not to lose grasp on something that gives them an exclusive power?
Because historically speaking, that is exactly what happened next. Hangul was opposed by the elite who saw it as a threat to their status and the study of it was eventually banned in the early 16th century. But it stayed strong among the undereducated, finding particular popularity with women and writers of popular fiction. There was eventually a revival and Hangul was adopted as the official alphabet. Today, King Sejong is revered as one of the most beloved rulers and popular folk heroes in Korea's long and varied history.
The museum was full of Hangul instructional texts which heralded a scientific and educational revolution for the common people. Included among them were this pamphlet on martial arts techniques...
...and these instructions for making booze!
I think my visit to the Hangul Museum helped me realize something that I tried really hard to articulate in my Mysteriously Unpublished Rage-draft of Hate. I realized how important it is to invest in people - all people - and make them feel valued. There is so much more I could say about it, but at the core, the benefits of not only letting people know that they matter but actually showing them they do are unfathomably massive. I've always been fortunate and I've always known privilege, but there are so many people out there who have the deck stacked against them to an unbelievable degree and all those in power want to tell them is Work harder! Do more! Be better! And if they can't, they get a kick in the ass. King Sejong showed real leadership because no one made him see things from the perspective of the low, but he did. And he made it better.
