The Korean blacksmith
By Robert Neff
According to an old Korean saying, there are no good knives in a blacksmith s house, meaning the blacksmith sells all the knives he makes and keeps only the old worn-out ones for his own family s use. It is a matter of interpretation as to whether this implied the blacksmith was too poor to afford his own wares or that he was negligent to his own family s needs.
Considering the blacksmith occupation seems to have been fairly profitable, perhaps it was the latter.
In 1901, Korean blacksmiths at the American gold mining concession in northern Korea were some of the most-prized employees. Their training and skill allowed them to command a monthly wage of $9 while Korean miners ― whose work was especially difficult and dangerous ― received only $7.50. The next tier of Korean employees were the shovelers, ore car operators and mill employees who received $6, and then the common laborers who received $4.50.
Hangeul s Mongolian predecessor
By Richard Pennington
Every Korean ― schoolboy or schoolgirl, taxi driver, computer programmer ― from the highest to the lowest levels of this society may know the glorious tale of how King Sejong took it upon himself in 1443 to construct an entirely new alphabet to fit the Korean language, freeing the people ― the literate ones, at least ― from their long dependence on classical Chinese. Hangeul is a fundamental part of Korean culture and a source of enduring pride. For good reason, we celebrate its creation and proclamation here every Oct. 9.
Linguistic specialists like Werner Sasse of Germany, Gari Ledyard of the United States, Hiroyuki Umeda of Japan and Geoffrey Sampson of the U.K. consider Hangeul as the world s best phonemic writing system. According to the latter, it s one of the great intellectual achievements of mankind.