Hurray for Hangul

Indonesian Tribe adopts Hangul

This has got to be the most interesting development for Hangul, the Korean written alphabet ever:

"For the first time ever, the Korean alphabet has been adopted as the official script of a small tribe in a foreign country. The Hunminjeongeum Research Institute on Thursday said that the Cia-Cia tribe of Bau-Bau city on Buton Island, located in the southeastern Indonesian province of Sulawesi, has adopted Korean or Hangul to transcribe its aboriginal language" ("Hangul Adopted as Alphabet of Small Indonesian Tribe" : The Chosun Ilbo).

I mean it makes sense and it's been long overdue (But, something about this story strikes me as a bit perverse, more on that later). As I'd like to just come out and venture that Hangul is probably one of the easiest langauges to pick up (it's written aspect). Perhaps, it'll make for a more meaningful and exciting Hangul Day next year.

My younger brother writes Happy Birthday wishes to our grandmother in Hangeul each year and he does so in this systematic process where he just spells the words out as he thinks it should be heard or spoken -- phonetically that is.

Of course, the fact that he never went to a Korean language school his whole life doesn't hinder him from doing this. He just simply picked it up from our mother; I'm telling you, it's got to be one of the easiest languages to pick up. But, definitely not one very easy to master though (Oh this does bring up that debate about how certain people feel that grammatically Korean has two faces, educated Korean and regular Korean).

Anyways, I get this feeling that the South Korean government -- you see, South Korea lies at the heart of super autocratic and centralized Northeast Asia, so I would venture to guess that in all likelihood language would also be regulated by the government (proper spelling -- imagine that in the states).

Oh, and of small government?

Though despite how pervasively the central governments step on individual liberty, rights, and property in that part of the world (all Northeast Asian countries included), it's amazing how small income (and consumption) taxes are as a share of total income in that part of the world (of course, North Korea would have to be excluded here). For example, I think a recent election pledge in Japan by both parties is to not raise the, of course, national sales tax above the current five percent for the forseeable future.

But of that small share, how much South Korean taxpayer money do you thinking is going into this? I know I just wrote that it makes sense in that Hangul is easy to pick up, but somehow, this story gives me this weird feeling that South Korea is taking advantage of this Indonesian tribe that lacks a written language out of their own vanitybut, something about this story strikes me as a bit perverse as if the South Korean government is somehow taking advantage of this poor innocent Indonesian tribe -- caring more about how this demonstrates what a great written language Hangul is than of the welfare of this poor tribe (somewhat akin to the Recognize Taiwan effect).

Korea is not as cool as Japan.

So, in the summer of 2007, I took an intensive 10-week "intermediate Korean" language course at UC Berkeley -- why I just didn't go to Yonsei University through the study abroad program I have no idea (It's cheaper to study at Yonsei University and financial aid covers the program no differently than if students were to have taken it here). By the way, despite the fact that California is what the Economist calls “The ungovernable state,” California offers her students so many opportunities to receive higher education that I am oh so, very proud to be a "native Californian" and attend a university known as "Cal." More so, after glimpsing overseas into a life as an illegal without a high school diploma in a country that values higher education religiously to the point where on College Entrace Exam Day,

"...while students are taking the listening portions of the tests, planes can't land or take off at the nation's airports" (Wall Street Journal).

I think the system here at California is incredible with its three tier, community college system, California State University system, and, of course, the University of California system, where pretty much, anybody that wants to learn could. By the way, this for me is basically the single best argument against those that argue for a minimum wage that is also a "liveable wage." I'd think raising incentives to go back to school or providing more financial support to those would provide much, more tangible benefits (I'd like to have a link here, but I don't).

Rather than raising minimum wages (and in exchange ensuring that a select few will lose their jobs -- again, akin to what I call the "carpool-lane-syndrome"), make it easier for people to go back to school and give them the financial support necessary to do so. While I am a recipient of much financial support from both government and family, I know a lot of others aren't. I think I will be living proof of that as I obtained my diploma from an adult school at twenty-five and am about to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley at twenty-eight. After that, I hope to be a very productive and contributive member of society.

More so, since as they say Cal is the flagship university of the University of California system (though I think UCLA has a slightly bigger endowment and a better basketball team, which, of course, will and should change over the long run), there are a lot of other schools to choose from in between... And, there's the private schools as well -- which brings up another point about how public universities need to get more financial support from alumni(a parallel argument about Korea follows).

But, anyways, while I was taking that Korean language course at Berkeley, there was only one "American" student in the class with American being used here in what I believe to be a very historical sense of the word, where being "American" meant white and male. Once a week, we'd watch movies or media in a different classroom, where a Japanese language course preceded our course at times -- I noticed that almost the entire Japanese language class was white.

So, I see a problem.

Why is it that there isn't more interest in Korea ? I mean, I understand. Mandarin Chinese is understood to be useful for business since after all China within the next couple decades will boast the largest economy (at least along a PPP measure, number of automobiles sold, internet users, etc). Japanese could also thought to be useful for business as Japanese savings makes up for roughly half the world's savings (I wish I had this link as well). But, more over, I get this feeling that Japanese is seen as cool and, me being, you know, Korean-American feel that it isn't. Some of this I blame on Koreans and their lack of confidence in their own country so far as I doubt those of Japanese descent reading this would take what I just wrote very seriously and would probably take what I just said to be a compliment (Consider South Korean reaction to Korean culture getting some good, quality exposure when Rain (비) was mentioned in the Colbert Report). To those Koreans that still don't agree or haven't seen it yet, watch the video and then read this.

And, then there's Korean, which I feel provokes, a "Ehhh...." feeling. Japanese, you understand, was an enemy of this country not too long ago and even in sixth grade I remember widespread distrust and angst against the Japanese in popular American culture. Remember the movie/book, Rising Sun? Well, it was about the Japanese trying to take over the United States by economic means (Although, Sony does own a chunk of Hollywood and Japanese investors did purchase the Rockafeller Center in New York at point. Not sure if that's really taking over the country. I would think this trade imbalance - minus the angle from Americans losing jobs on a large scale - is more of a neo-colonial system where Americans get to enjoy all these great products from all over the world at dirt cheap prices).

Anyways, I think those of Korean heritage that have grown to be rich or influential, such as actors, scholars, and owners of giant conglomerates, such as Samsung, have a duty to advertise the country or at the very least make sure that public univerisities have the funding to provide classes on the Korean language. University of California was about to cut Korean language courses last year at Los Angeles and Berkeley and was also about to eliminate the Korean Studies minor at Berkeley.

Koreans invented Chinese Writing?

Or was it just Chinese Government Propaganda aimed for domestic Chinese consumption.

A couple days ago, I found out that my aunt also thought Chinese writing (漢子) was invented by Koreans. So, I did a little research and came to believe that it was simply Chinese Government Propaganda. As the video above shows, I couldn't find a professor from Seoul University that holds this view (or did any research on it).

The only view in favor of the view that Koreans actually invented Chinese writing is here:

I personally found it to be ridiculous and watched the Japanese video over and over again. Nonetheless, it's quite scary that people such as my aunt and perhaps countless other Koreans could actually come to believe that.

I think the point that makes it sound convincing for Koreans is that they believe that the Dong Yin (East Shang) dynasty was composed of ethnic Koreans as the leaders of Gojoseon supposedly came from this kingdom. Nonetheless, even if this were true, Koreans should remember that along genetic lines Koreans and Han Chinese are different (Korean haplogroup vs Chinese haplogroup). So, at most, a leader or a noble came from China (and Shandong Province to me can't be anymore Chinese).




Plus, I'm not a calligraphy expert, but that one book that purports how Hangeul is a perfected version of Hanja (漢子), but if you look at different sources on the web, it talks about how even when two symbols look nearly identical the order in which the brush is used to write the characters is different seems to point to a different system. Anyways, it seems to be the most reasonable that the Hanja/Kanji that Koreans use today come directly from Tang China and are probably more "pure" than the simplified Chinese characters mainland China uses today.