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What to Do & see
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- [ Nam Yeong-sin, Director of the Korean Language Research Institute ]
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Many commercial signboards in Seoul are written in foreign letters, i.e. English, Spanish, Japanese and French. Sometimes, signboards written in Hangeul seem dwarfed by them. Some locals go so far as to say that signboards in Hangeul look outdated and bigoted.
However, there is one place in Seoul where even the global Starbucks Coffee franchise uses signboards in Hangeul. That place is Insa-dong. The coffee house is said to have made such an exceptional decision in an effort to follow the prevailing atmosphere of that area, which features many of the country’s time-old traditions.
In the 1970s, the country underwent a rapid process of Westernization and modernization in the course of which the number of commercial signboards in Hangeul decreased more and more. Even locals did not pay much attention to the fact that Hangeul signboards have their own esthetic quality. However, in contrast to such a situation in other places, Insa-dong displays countless commercial signboards containing Hangeul letters of sophisticated design.
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A foreigner with a little knowledge of Korean will have more fun reading and understanding the meaning of these Hangeul signboards, rather than those written in English or Chinese characters. A signboard saying “오! 자네 왔는가” (Hey, buddy, I’m glad you are here!) is thought to welcome customers with warm hospitality. Another one saying “아빠 어렸을 적에” (When Dad was a little boy) at a cafe whose interiors are reminiscent of an olden-day train station in a rural village makes one look back wistfully to the past. These are just a few examples of Hangeul signboards in Insa-dong that attest to the locals’ sense of humor and warm-heartedness, in addition to their refined sense of esthetics. One eatery has erected a signpost next to an apple tree in its entrance, which says, “예쁜 마당이 있는 사과나무로 놀러 오세요” in cute and pretty letters. Would people enjoy the same pleasant and joyful feeling if it were written in English “Welcome to the Apple Tree!”?
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Why don’t you pay a visit to Insa-dong’s Ssamji-gil, a street lined with many small art shops? A yellow-colored signboard with two ㅆ letters (apparently referring to the first sound of the name of the street in Korean) stand hand in hand smiling attracts attention. Small and cute signboards containing such words as 방, 종, 참, or 예닮 are a special feature of the street. A building with a spiral staircase and a central pole has a yellow wooden board attached to each floor containing the words 두오름길 (“second upward path”), 세오름길 (“third …’), 네오름길 (“fourth ….”). The rooftop is named 울긋불긋 꽃대궐 (“The palace full of colorful flowers”). The phrase 울긋불긋 꽃대궐 appears in a song which all Koreans learn during their elementary school days, but the name attached to the rooftop of a building does not sound childish. If it is written in Roman letters in Helvetica font, it may look stylish and refined, but it could also leave one feeling that it’s out of place. These signboards, which are small but harbor significant implications, make Insa-dong an area where visitors can feel the locals’ identity and the warmth of their hearts.
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Some people point out that the area is becoming an increasingly commercial district. Well, it is in a sense and there is no way to prevent this. However, Insa-dong remains a place that preserves the country’s traditional identity. In the pre-modernization period, Koreans kept their pure and simple hearts despite being economically destitute. Insa-dong is a place that has succeeded in preserving an atmosphere that is closely associated with the pure-heartedness of the locals and their keen sense of esthetics.
- Curriculum vitae [ Nam Yeong-sin ]
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- Director, the Korean Language Research Institute
- Korean linguist; President of the Korean Language Foundation
