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Is everyone doing well in this freezing cold?
This concern keeps me awake at night.
I am physically alright in this mountain village, except for the unsettling thought on how to confront the invaders when the spring comes very soon.
Please don't worry about me as I have received all the garments you sent.
I hope you will enjoy the New Year's Day, taking good care of your mother. I won't write to the children; say hello to them for me.
In spite of my rank, food is scarce here. Sorry I cannot send you any nice things. We will be lucky if we can meet each other again alive. There is no guarantee.
Don't miss me, and be well.
Sincerely,
On the 24th of the last month of the year.
This is a letter in hangeul, written by Kim Seong-il in his assigned fortress to his wife back home in 1592. Kim went down in history as a bad guy as he gave an inaccurate judgment about the Japanese hidden intention to invade Korea.
On the other hand, his superior Hwang Yun-gil, the official emissary to Japan in 1591, spotted Japan's plan to invade the country. Japanese troops invaded Joseon in 1592, the year of Imjin, and the war lasted for six years.
Kim was sentenced to death for his mistake, but was saved by Prime Minister Ryu Seong-ryong. Ryu and Kim were the top disciples of honored Confucian scholar Yi Hwang, (pseudonym Toegye). Kim was then assigned to an outpost for defense of the area. The nation appreciated his competence very highly, especially in the time of war.
Kim's letter was accompanied by a small gift package sent to his family members, with about a kilogram of mushrooms, twenty pomegranates and two dried fish. Maybe he already knew his soldiers would be defeated, and he actually meant this as a farewell to his wife, Kwon Deok-bong from the Andong Kwon clan.
Joseon Korea followed Confucian teachings, respecting benevolence, self-cultivation and a love of poetry. It is recorded that there was actually little resistance at the Korean fortresses and villages when the attackers arrived. The Koreans with their spears and bows-and-arrows were no match for the well-trained Japanese warriors.
Why did he report that he saw no sign in Japan of any military attack? Later he wrote ''If the court loses the people's trust, it would be more harmful to national defense than attacking thieves from the island neighbor." He did not want to risk the possibility of raising a false alarm.
As details of the micro-history of the Joseon Kingdom are researched, facts and anecdotes about hangeul impress us. When King Sejong officially presented hangeul in 1446, it was met with strong opposition by the literati for fear it would downgrade the people's intellectual level.
''Who would take the toil of studying the difficult classics of China if they can write with simple and easy characters?" wrote ruling class scholars in a petition to the king. Hangeul was called "Hunmin Jeongeum" meaning the proper sounds to teach people.
However, the learned class termed it derogatorily as characters for women and children. Hangeul emerged as the official national writing system by the 1894 reform measures. The pioneer hangeul scholar Ju Si-gyeong (1876–1914) gave it the name we use today.
I visited the newly opened Hangeul Museum last week. It stands along the boulevard near Yongsan Family Park, in front of the National Museum of Korea with a garden and pond between the two museum buildings. The Hangeul Museum is by no means a small building, but the National Museum dwarfs it. Touring the museum, I was reminded of a few truths and myths about hangeul.
Firstly, hangeul is not the Korean language, but is the writing system. The statement "hangeul is the most scientific language in the world" sounds just natural. That is probably because there is no clear distinction between the words ''writing characters" and ''spoken language" in Korean.
Many think the hangeul was so organized and logical that UNESCO placed it on the world heritage list. But to be accurate, the book ''Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye" was registered as a UNESCO Memory of the World on October 1, 1997. It is designated as the national treasure number 70.
Hunmin jeongeum has two parts: Ye-eui (precedents and definition) and Hae-rye (explanations and examples). The explanation part was compiled by eight scholars while the main part with precedents and definition were written by the king himself. The Haerye section was discovered in 1940 and is retained at the Gansong Museum in Seongbuk-dong, Seoul.
Now going back to Kim Seong-il's letter to his wife, the small piece of paper tells us many stories. First, it was and still is hangeul that is most suitable to express our feelings rather than Chinese characters. Moreover, this great scholar could say what he wanted to his wife thanks to hangeul, as she could read it.
As he had predicted in his letter, it was his farewell message to his family. Kim got sick from overwork in getting ready for the attack. He died four months later at 58.
The writer is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com.
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