Hanja Part 2 Names of Countries

THIS IS A DRAFT. IT CONTAINS MANY ERRORS.

Hello my fellow students this is our second lesson on Hanja. Hanja is the use of Chinese characters in Korean writing. Hanja is not used especially often in Korea, but centuries ago Korean was written entirely in Chinese characters. It didn't work very well. So the great King Sejong invented the modern writing system that Korea uses today. Some Chinese characters have stuck around, though. The interesting thing about Chinese writing is that each character represents an entire word, not just a letter. And there is something really appealing about being able to express and entire word in just one little picture. It's kind of like using emojis. And we all know how fun and easy it can be to use emojis rather than typing out an entire sentence.

One place where you see a lot of hanja characters is in newspapers and news articles. In particular, when they are writing the names of countries. But not all countries, just some of the ones that tend to be reported on the most

Here they are:

South Korea

North Korea

Japan

China 

America 

England

Lets start with South Korea it looks like 韓國

this part is the symbol for country. We're gonna see this one a lot today. I think it kind of looks like a map and that's how I remember it means country. the big square is the paper and all those lines are like roads and rivers that's a lake. This is what I do when trying to learn hanja, I try to turn the character into a picture that relates to the word it represents. So this one is a map of a country. 

and this means Han. which is the name of the major river in South Korea. South Korea is known as Han country. To say South Korea in Korean it is han-gook. gook is the word for country. This character looks like 2 stick figures holding hands. or should I say holding "han"s. these stick figures are even wearing traditional korean hats.

Now North Korea has the character for han in it too.

and this one means north. North Korea is north of the han. The word for north is 북(buk). North Korea is buk-han. Infact, you may encounter any of the 4 cardinal directions in hanja. Lets learn em all

north 北 (북buk)

south 南 (남쪽 nam)

east 東 (동쪽 dong)

west 西方 (seo 서쪽)

first of all north makes me think of the north pole where santa's elves live. and this is a picture of the elf's legs and the elf shoes, like on the cover of the movie Elf.

Now south. I see this as a church. that's the walls and the roof, and that's the cross on top. And this thing inside. I think it looks like a sheep. and this help me remember south because in the southern US people are more religious.

West- it looks like that. this is one guy getting lowered into a tank of water and another guy running away. I don't know what this has to do with west. but that is what I see. This is getting difficult.

East - Here's one that I can explain. did ya ever notice that the country to the east of Korea is Japan? Japan is written like this Do you remember this character from our first hanja lesson? It looks like a window and it means sun. Japan is the land of the rising sun. Have you heard that before? land of the rising sun. and the red circle on its flag represents the sun. and where does the sun rise? in the East! This character for east is what you get when you put the characters for Japan ontop of each other.

mind. blown. (Japan in korean is il-bon "il" means day, you know like the days of the week all end in "il" wo-yo-il, hwa-yo-il, su-yo-il and so on. il means day and this character means sun, but it also means day. You use it when you write the date 2023 年 1 月 21 日)

Alright now the country where this whole writing system originated China.

Oh. Oh. Oh. another character we remember from last time "middle"! and we know this one too. It looks like a map. It means country. China means middle country. Why do they call it that? Well the Chinese called themselves middle country because from where they stood there was land to the east, lands to the west, to the south, to the north and where are they standing? well in the middle of course. From your own perspective you are always standing in the middle of the world. When the English created modern time zones they used England as the middle of the world. people are always seeing things from their own perspective. We are the centre of our own universes. that's how china came to be called middle country. (In Korean 중국)

Speaking of England check out how you write that in hanja. Again. we have the character for country. and I swear this is British soldier. Like it looks exactly like a British soldier.

And finally the United States of America. again there it is country country country! but what's this? This is the Chinese character for 'beautiful'. What a nice compliment. If you see this character all by its lonesome it just means beautiful. You might see it in advertising for cosmetics. Actually, maybe not. You're more likely to see English or even French in Korean cosmetics ads. 

South Korea 韓國

North Korea 北韓

Japan 日本

China 中國

England 英國

America 美國

So those are the countries that you will encounter when reading the news in Korean. and they are usually shortened to just 1 character like so.

South Korea 韓

North Korea 北

Japan 日

China 中

England 英

America 美

South Korea is just "Han", North Korea is just "north". Japan is just "sun". China is just "middle", England is just "English", America is just "beautiful". It might seem confusing to give these countries names with double meanings but remember Korean is very contextual. You should able to figure out what you're reading based on context. Although, it is a little funny to think that when the president of Korea makes a trip to Japan the Newspaper says "the president of Korea will fly to the sun tomorrow"