Korean Holidays in October

There were two National Korean Holidays recently, and I thought I'd share a quick post about each.

(picture found on http://www.san-shin.org/Dan-gun_Myth.html)

October 3rd was Gaecheonjol, or National Foundation Day, here in Korea. The holiday celebrates the birth of the Korean nation with the establishment of the Gojoseon Kingdom by a mythical ruler named Dangun in 2333 BC. In short, the legend says that a bear and tiger begged to become human, the bear succeeded in the trial set before them, and then she later had a son, who grew to become Dangun. It's an interesting story and you can read a full accounting HERE.

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Thursday was Hangul Day (한글날) - a Korean holiday which commemorates the creation and usage of Hangul, the writing system for the Korean language. Hangul Day is celebrated on October 9th in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and on January 15th in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).

In short, Hangul was invented by King Sejong the Great (세종대왕), the scholar king of the Joseon Dynasty in 1443. The writing system was tailored to the Korean language so that it would be easy to learn and use, so that every Korean citizen could become literate without years of schooling.  Chinese characters were used prior to this to write everything in Korean, with some modified characters used to express sounds and words absent in Chinese. 

A National Hangul Museum opened this week, as part of Seoul's Hangul Day festivities, and we will be visiting it soon, once the "newness crowds" die down a bit.

For those looking for a free online resource to learn to read Hangul, visit How to Study Korean!

For now, here is your brief lesson of the day, which you can compare to the chart above: 

안 녕 하 세 요

An nyeong ha sae yo

Hello!

Watch for my next post, about a Hangul Day fashion show in honor of King Sejong the Great!