By Honorary Reporter Ana Paula Camacho Perez from Mexico

Photos = Ana Paula Camacho Perez

The National Hangeul Museum in Seoul celebrates the indigenous Korean writing system, featuring its history and scientific basis. Honorary Reporters of Korea.net on July 9 visited this museum on a group trip to learn more about the Korean alphabet and attend a calligraphy workshop.

Hangeul after its inception had three scripts: panbonche, gungche and minche. The first was the initial way of writing letters through straight and symmetrically aligned strokes. Gungche, the royal court's writing style, had more freely made strokes. Minche was a mixed script read from left to right making it easy for laypeople to read and write.

Another interesting characteristic is that Hangeul can easily be stylized to imitate what the words represent. For instance, the word "dance" can be shaped like someone dancing with their arms wide open and the same goes for "flower." 

After learning the history and theory of Hangeul, the class moved on to calligraphy styles, starting off with the calligraphy stylus and ways to draw strokes. We worked on a workbook and materials to practice such as postcards and blank pages. For the final product, we made small badges with our own calligraphy. I wrote on mine the phrase "You are my sunshine" in Hangeul with the techniques I learned.

The museum's permanent exhibition features the history, cultural significance and preservation of Hangeul including a modern-day artistic interpretation of the Sejong Sillok, the first book through which the alphabet's inventor, King Sejong the Great, presented his creation to the public.

Hangeul was incorporated into daily life through books about mainstream neo-Confucianist and Buddhist values. The exhibition displayed the short stories and illustrated books that allowed people to start using Hangeul in contexts they were familiar with.

King Sejong also believed that social class and status were not important to literacy and communication, as Hangeul became a tool for communication and expression for the royal family. The museum shows how his writing style changed throughout the years and his regular use of it for text composition. 

A section of the exhibition displayed a form of Korean resistance to Japanese occupation to protect the Korean language and culture. The Manuscript of Malmoi, a National Registered Cultural Heritage believed to date back to 1911, is considered Korea's first dictionary. 

msjeon22@korea.kr

*This article is written by a Korea.net Honorary Reporter. Our group of Honorary Reporters are from all around the world, and they share with Korea.net their love and passion for all things Korean.