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Post by ajk on Nov 21, 2008 13:36:47 GMT -5
I thought #75 did a very nice job of taking Sejong's historical motivations for creating the Hangul alphabet and turning them into a good story. I didn't know the background behind it all, but the crawl at the end of the episode was enlightening and explained how what we saw in the episode really did relate to the actual reasons for Sejong creating Hangul. Obviously they took some dramatic license to create the story, but I thought it was a great example of how you can stay faithful to history and still give people entertaining television. The one thing I didn't understand from the crawl was the reference to the book about "three relationships." But I managed to find an explanation: It is legitimate to a degree to treat Confucianism as a religion....But it is important also to describe Confucianism as an ideology--perhaps a secular religion, in which it is not gods who matter but the state and its relation to people's lives. In the simplest terms, Confucianism is based on "the three relationships," which suggest that the relationship between the ruler and his people, the man and his womenfolk, and the father and his children, are all essentially the same relationship-one of absolute power of the one over the other. (Source: asia.msu.edu/seasia/Vietnam/religion.html)So I'm guessing that the book was a practical, how-to illustrated guide for the common people on how to properly observe the relationships under Confucianism, which as we've seen was Joseon's official religion. And the alphabet would help the common people communicate problems with the relationships, most likely the abuse of authority. P.S. I'm about as far from a Confucian scholar as a person can get, so if anybody can add to any of this or correct anything I got wrong, that would be great.
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Post by kathleen34 on Nov 21, 2008 13:57:57 GMT -5
Interestingly enough, I happened to buy a book either from AMAZON or EBAY... It is a children's book and it gives a nice story of King Sejong and how he designed the Hangul alphabet. I understand this book was not well received in Korea, but I still think it's cool that a book was even made. And remarkably, the clothing is a close match to what we see each MON and TU.
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Post by Candylover on Nov 21, 2008 16:11:34 GMT -5
The one thing I didn't understand from the crawl was the reference to the book about "three relationships." But I managed to find an explanation: It is legitimate to a degree to treat Confucianism as a religion....But it is important also to describe Confucianism as an ideology--perhaps a secular religion, in which it is not gods who matter but the state and its relation to people's lives. In the simplest terms, Confucianism is based on "the three relationships," which suggest that the relationship between the ruler and his people, the man and his womenfolk, and the father and his children, are all essentially the same relationship-one of absolute power of the one over the other. (Source: asia.msu.edu/seasia/Vietnam/religion.html)So I'm guessing that the book was a practical, how-to illustrated guide for the common people on how to properly observe the relationships under Confucianism, which as we've seen was Joseon's official religion. And the alphabet would help the common people communicate problems with the relationships, most likely the abuse of authority. Ajk, I always admire your sincere interest in this series. I think the information you provided is correct and well reflects what most Koreans, Chinese and Japanese have in their minds about the three relations. What I want to add is that the three-bonds seems to be a more commonly used term than the three relations. The next two links that mention the three bonds would be worthy of reading. confucianism.freehostingguru.com/tuweiming.com/lecture.7.html
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Post by oasis6107 on Nov 23, 2008 0:01:00 GMT -5
You've guessed right, ajk. The book about 'three relationships' mentioned in the crawl is called 'samganghaengsildo' . This book was first published in 1432, the 14th year of Sejong's reign, the purpose being the reclamation of the people. It portraits 105 people who best represent the spirit of 'samgang'. It is also written in both Chinese letters and Hangul, and this is what most makes this book priceless. Some pages of 'samganghaengsildo' are introduced in the current official Korean highschool textbook. 'samgang'(三綱) means 'the three general principles', namely 'the three relationships', each corresponding to 'the king-subject relationship' 'the parent-child relationship' and finally 'the husband-wife relationship'. I'm explaining this 'samgang' thing as a 'relationship' notion, but the nuance is rather 'the manners that must be shown in relationships'. To get more detailed, there is also 'oryun'(五倫), meaning 'the five moral principles' which embodies 'samgang' . Details of 'oryun' are the following: 父子有親 : Between parent and child, there must be intimacy 君臣有義 : Between king and subject, there must be righteousness 夫婦有別 : Between husband and wife, there must be distinction in their roles(This one may sound a bit old fashioned) 長幼有序 : Between the old and the young, there must be order 朋友有信 : Between friends, there must be sincerity Thus, when Asians mention 'samgang' , they usually mention 'oryun' together for the two cannot go without each other. 'Samgang' and 'oryun' are the basic ethics widely accepted in any Confusian culture, and still have powerful influence over the modern Asian everyday life. p.s. note that the pronunciation 'samgang' and 'oryun' are only for Korean.
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Post by ajk on Nov 24, 2008 15:51:38 GMT -5
Thank you both for taking the time to post that good information. Very helpful. And you're right, candylover, "three bonds" seems to be a bit better of a translation; I was able to find a bit more using that phrase. Here's a passage that I came across from an excellent article on Sejong's achievements: This royal concern for the literacy of the common people seems to have been first manifested in 1434, on the occasion of the publication of a collection of morality tales that Sejong had ordered compiled in order to promote consciousness of Confucian ethics.This work, entitled "The Three Bonds and True Examples of their Practice, with Illustrations" (Samgang haengsil to), was concerned with the three basic Confucian relationships: those between parents and children, seniors and juniors, and husband and wife.Three hundred and thirty inspiring stories exemplifying these "three bonds" were culled from Chinese and Korean history and rewritten in Chinese versions, each filling a single printed page. But Sejong clearly saw the essential problem: if the people could not read Chinese, how could they be uplifted by the stories? Adding an illustration for each story was helpful but hardly met the difficulty, as the king acknowledged. "Since the common people generally do not know Chinese characters," he lamented, "even when this book is distributed how will they be able to act upon it unless someone shows them how to read it? ...let everyone seek out people of learning and sophistication, without regard to class status, strongly urging them to teach people to read, not excluding women of all ages...." What Sejong evidently had in mind at that time was a kind of nationwide tutorial in the text of "The Three Bonds." His prescription followed the traditional Korean reading pedagogy for Chinese: using Sino-Korean pronunciation, one teaches the student to pronounce a Chinese text out loud; the student then memorizes it and absorbs instruction on its meaning; and as the same procedure is repeated with more and more texts, he or she gradually learns to read. While Sejong's wishes were noble enough, he himself surely realized that they were unrealistic. The idea for a new and different approach – the direct promotion of national literacy through the creation of a national phonetic script – may indeed have been conceived at this time. In any case, we know for certain that a decade later, within a few weeks of his announcement of the alphabet, Sejong was talking of a Korean translation of "The Three Bonds.” www.koreasociety.org/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=349&Itemid=35(This article has a few minor historical spoilers in it, so people may not want to read it just yet, but I'm going to post the link again after the last episode because there's some very good stuff in it that I think should be mentioned on this board. It's a terrific piece of work for people like me who are clueless about Korean history.) This is a great passage for people watching GKS because it shows how the how the alphabet's development was so strongly tied to the "three bonds" book.
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