16.Commentary

As this commentary is going to be about influential people of Korea, how can I not talk about King Sejong the Great? During his reign Korea went through a golden age, as many cultural, economic and scientific developments were made. King Sejong's aim was to improve education. As the kingdom had been founded with the principles of confucianism, he followed them rightfully. King Sejong was a king who wanted to improve the lives of the lower class people. To do this, when hard times came, such as floods, he established places where people could find food and shelter and also found relief programs. Also, for farmers who were having problems with their harvests, he began to use again a loan system used in the Koryo Kingdom, in which the government loaned them grains, which were not in need to use, and they could be paid back later on. As he was really focused on education, he greatly promoted new developments in music, science, linguistics and philosophy. To convince the scholars to focus greatly on their studies, the government gave them great support. And how can we forget about his greatest invention?. Hangul was a great development for korean society. They previously had been using the chinese characters, as illiteracy was not the big deal back then, it was thought that it was not good to put such a high-class form of writing into the hands of common people. But Sejong disagreed with this, he wanted a language that has easy to learn so that he could easily communicate with the people of his nation. He worked with a group of scholars to develop it. Although it was first not accepted by many scholars, Sejong did his best to promote Hangul. This was a very important creation, people could now communicate easily and information could flow across the kingdom. King Sejong is considered a very important hero of Korea, his inventions helped for the great development of the Korean society.

People like King Sejong deserve wide recognition for their great efforts to improve their society. Language is a great characteristic that gives a nation an identity. To get to know your country, you need to listen to what people living in different conditions have to say, and King Sejong did his best to achieve this. If only the nobility could know how to write, then he could not easily know what was happening around his kingdom, having this new language approved, I think he totally changed the korean society. Also, by giving a hand to those in need, he really helped to the fast recovery of the society, so that it could continue running. Inventions are the ones that get our world ahead, and with a leader thats full of ideas, the nation can go to a higher level. If a nation is full of thinkers and educated people, they can work together to develop new inventions, but if only a small part of the nation can be educated, there will not be that much success, as King Sejong sought to educate the nation, I think he was looking towards the future, he wanted to leave an inheritance of good thinkers to the kingdom. As he was devoted to make the lives of the people of his kingdom better, he was thinking like a real king. A king works to improve his kingdom, not only his life. A person that worries for human rights like him is the kind of person we should follow. By giving people a characteristic that differs them from other nations is a great incentive for them to take care of the nation in which they live in. He was very right about books being essential for knowledge, books are the ones that keep record of history and help us understand more, and as more people were then able to read them, knowledge could flow through the kingdom.

Sources:
http://asiasociety.org/countries/traditions/king-sejong-great
http://www.chosonkorea.org/index.php/people/kings/king-sejong-the-great