By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter

An Indonesian tribe that has adopted "Hangeul" as its alphabet visited a memorial for King Sejong (1418-1450), Wednesday.

The Joseon-era king is credited for creating the Korean alphabet. Amirul Tamim, 55, mayor of the Indonesian city of Bau-Bau, along with students, teachers, the head of the tribe and city officials, visited King Sejong's statue at Gwanghwamun Plaza and perused "The King Sejong Story," an underground exhibition on the life and work of the fourth king of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910).

Bau-Bau Mayor Tamim said he was grateful to Koreans. "We will do our best to settle Hangeul as our written language," he said.

Two 16-year-old students from Cia-Cia ㅡ Fidriana and Samsir ㅡ placed flowers at the King's statue.

They tried to read Hunminjeongeum, the first book written in Hangeul by the king, and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, who was explaining how the king created the Korean alphabet, corrected their pronunciation while guiding them around the plaza and exhibition.

At the exhibition, Mayor Oh and the students posted a piece of paper on which Fidriana had written "Cia-Cia" in Hangeul characters.

"We will create a room for the Cia-Cia tribe near the memorial and display a textbook written in Hangeul," a city official said. After touring the museum, the group of visitors took a photo in front of King Sejong's portrait.

"I was moved by the passion of Koreans. I will do my best to study Korean when I get back to Indonesia," Fidriana said.

Samsir said it was easy to learn Korean. "It is amazing that King Sejong invented such a great alphabet like Hangeul," he said.

The visitors from Cia-Cia toured other cultural heritages in Seoul, such as Gyeongbok Palace and various hanok, or Korean traditional houses, Wednesday.

Seoul City and the Hunminjeongeum Society invited the tribe from Bau-Bau City ㅡ which is located on Buton Island in Southeast Sulawesi ㅡ for a six-day trip to Seoul that began Monday. The tribe with a population of some 60,000 chose Hangeul to transcribe their language in August.

Seoul signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Bau-Bau Tuesday to promote cultural exchange and cooperation in promoting the expansion of Hangeul.

meeyoo@koreatimes.co.kr