TKD Tenets calligraphy Korean/Chinese?

Discussion in 'Tae Kwon Do' started by De--Spijker, Jan 3, 2016.

  1. De--Spijker

    De--Spijker New Member

    Goodmorning,

    There's a discusion in my club going on about the Taekwon-Do tenets calligraphy as in this picture http://www.orientaloutpost.com/forum/download/file.php?id=478.

    Some say it's Chinese signs. Others say they are old Korean signs that is based on the Chinese signs. Does anybody knows the right answer for sure?

    Also I know the big signs are the tenets. What do the small signs in the left bottom means?

    Thank for the help! Would mean a lot to know the right answers for sure.
     
  2. huoxingyang

    huoxingyang Valued Member

    It's Chinese characters.

    In the old days and for calligraphy purposes, Korean was written using Chinese characters.

    It reads:
    跆拳道精神 | táiquándào jīngshén | Taekwondo spirit
    禮儀 | lǐyí | Courtesy
    廉耻 | liánchǐ | Integrity
    忍耐 | rěnnài | Perserverence
    克己 | kèjǐ | Self-control
    百折不屈 | bǎi zhé bùqū | Indomitable

    The smaller characters are Gen. Choi's name Choi Hong Hi 崔泓熙 (not sure about the first two characters).
     
  3. Thomas

    Thomas Combat Hapkido/Taekwondo

    And this tradition extends to today. Korean school children learn somewhere around 10,000 Chinese characters (Hanja) by the time they graduate. Chinese characters show up in newspaper/TV/books/etc for those times when a very specific term is used (Korean writing is based around the sounds... so it's easy to have many meaning for the same syllables). It's also common to use Chinese characters, or even a mix of Hangeul and Hanja, in calligraphy today.

    That said, as far as I know, some of the Chinese characters (Hanja) are a bit different than those you may see in China (much like some of the ones in Japan have changed over time).

    This only applies to South Korea... if I recall, North Korea removed Hanja (Chinese Characters) from their official writing.
     
  4. De--Spijker

    De--Spijker New Member

    Thank you very much for the information guys!
     

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