What’s in the Name?

Here’s an oddity you may not have noticed if you’re not fluent in the Korean language:

When the Germans were formally split into two separate nations in 1949, their respective governments naturally took on different names for themselves: the Federal Republic of Germany assumed responsibility for Western Germany, while Eastern Germans found themselves ruled by the German Democratic Republic. Likewise, the division of the Vietnamese people into two countries from 1954 to 1975 resulted in the rise of a northern regime named the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and a southern one named the Republic of Vietnam. And if you read their official titles in English, you might think North and South Korea have followed this same Cold War era naming convention.

But read them in the Koreans’ native script instead and a curious disparity pops up: each country has a different word for Korea itself.

It was the Korean Communists who made the natural choice, in 1948, of referring to their people as Joseon (조선) when asked by the Russians whose democratic republic they’d like to be. Joseon, after all, had been the name of the land for most of the last 543 years (and if you believed the ancient myths, a total of over 2700). But new president Rhee Syngman offered a different word for his newly formed country when he proclaimed South Korea’s first republic: Hanguk (한국), lit. “the country of the Han people”. The full name of this republic would be Daehan Minguk (대한민국), “the Republic of the Great Han People.”

This wasn’t a big surprise either. In choosing Daehan Minguk, President Rhee and the National Assembly were only preserving the name under which Korean freedom fighters had fought the Japanese colonizers for 35 years. The freedom fighters, in turn, derived their moniker from Daehan Jeguk (대한제국), “the Empire of the Great Han People”, because that happened to be the name that the last empowered emperor of Joseon abruptly gave their homeland before his death.

That was a surprise. Mind you, Emperor Gojong’s heart was in the right place. The change reflected his overall effort at rebranding his dirt-poor kingdom as a modern nation-state, in the high hope Japan would think twice about gobbling it up. He even bought trendy Western outfits for everybody. Sadly, the plan didn’t work; Japan simply decided to eat faster, annexing the peninsula in 1910.

Yet the Emperor’s spirit has this consolation: he may be remembered far less for failing to continue one of the world’s oldest dynasties than for gifting his country with a wonderfully appropriate sobriquet it may wear forever.

True, on a surface level “the country of the Han people” seems an uninspired choice for the name of… well, a country full of people who have always called themselves the Han. It was like renaming Israel “the Country of the Jews” (Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu: This is not a suggestion). But the emperor’s placement of his subjects’ name on the national marquee was in itself a revolutionary and empowering act, an acknowledgement of their stake in his state – and regardless, Han is far more than a mere label of an ethnic group.

Han once meant “great,” “country” and “leader”. Although the word was first written in Chinese letters and the Chinese also call themselves “the Han people” (although using different letters), most scholars agree the Korean Han is not a loan word from China. Koreans may have inherited the word from their Altaic ancestors, from whom the Mongolians have also descended. In fact the word “han” is a Sino-Korean cognate of the famous “khan”, and not only that, but the Korean word for the number one is hana (하나). Consider how “being first” is identified with leadership in every culture (e.g. our First Ladies) and you’ll understand why there likely is a phonetic connection.

More importantly, though, the word Han is also used by Koreans to describe a particular emotional burden that they believe is endemic in Korean culture, even synonymous with it. It has no direct English equivalent, but it’s essentially a deep regret for a terrible loss, whether incurred by duty or disaster. A Korean man’s decision to marry the woman his parents want for him, rather than the woman he loves: this creates Han. So too did the crushing poverty many Koreans once fought to survive.

It’s slightly more complicated than that, though. Central to the idea of Han is a lack of reconciliation to the pain. It’s nothing like a vague, immature belief that everything will somehow be right in the end, nor is it a desire to actively seek justice. It’s just a grim conviction not to resign one’s self to what has happened, to never acquiesce in your heart to whatever evil you are otherwise helpless to resist.

This has proven a valuable national trait for Koreans in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Since Emperor Gojong’s failed attempt to save their homeland, they’ve endured 38 years of foreign rule, a terrible civil war, and nearly 60 more years of division, with half their people trapped in a Communist dystopia. It is almost as if the old ruler realized the inevitability of his defeat and re-named his lost country as a future reminder to his subjects of whom they must be: a nation capable of enduring such misfortunes, but never accepting them. Intentionally or otherwise, South Korea has preserved this message in its name and language ever since, and almost a hundred years after they were last independent and whole, the Han retain their Han.

This article’s photograph of Emperor Gojong is under the public domain in the Republic of Korea.

The author’s reference to “38 years of foreign rule” includes the 3 years in which Korea was administered by the Soviet Union and U.S.A. after World War II.