How can you hit it big and get rich?
Some inventions and ideas have made many people rich over the years! Let’s take a look at the stories behind them. Perhaps we can learn from them and hit it big ourselves.
Korean apartment complex names often use English. Lotte Construction has Castle, Hyundai Engineering & Construction has Hillstate, Hoban Construction has VERTIUM, and SK Construction has SK VIEW. Most apartment names are in foreign languages. Daelim Industrial’s e Pyeonhansesang combines English and Korean. Samsung C&T’s Raemian, GS E&C’s Xi, and Daewoo E&C’s PRUGIO are brands whose names could be mistaken for either Korean or a foreign language. During the IMF financial crisis, even Daewoo, which later went bankrupt, borrowed Donald Trump’s name for an apartment complex it had already built. Someone joked that this was so mothers-in-law couldn’t find their daughters-in-law’s homes. In the author’s view, Koreans seem to think that using English makes something seem more sophisticated—a remnant of cultural deference to the West, perhaps.
Yet Korean is said to be the world’s most scientific language and especially well suited to the IT era.
This is no exaggeration. Just 24 consonants and vowels can represent more than a million Korean words.
Korean is also one of the very few languages in which people of all ages can exchange text messages easily using just the 10 keys on a mobile phone keypad. Twitter makes the point: the English word “house” takes five letters, while the Korean word 집 takes just one. That is a huge difference.
Yet South Korea is an English-language paradise. Here are some slogans used by regional governments: Seoul’s “Hi Seoul,” Daegu’s “Colorful Daegu,” Daejeon’s “It’s Daejeon,” and South Gyeongsang Province’s “Feel Gyeongnam.” Other major cities are much the same, as are local governments.
What about TV programs? These days, a show can hardly make a name for itself without an English title. Television is now promoting English. Here are a few examples: KBS2’s <Gag Concert>, <Vitamin>, <Happy Together>, <Music Bank>, and <TOP Band>; SBS’s <Diet Survival Victory> and <Football Magazine Goal!>; and MBC’s <Cover Dance Festival K-POP Road Show 40120>. Even a show the author often watches is called <Fantastic Duo>. This shows how little regard Korean broadcasters have for the Korean language. English words and signs are also common on Korean streets.
This is the reality in South Korea today.
Language and writing are vessels that hold a nation’s and people’s spirit and culture. That is why every country makes teaching its language and writing to future generations—and passing them down—a central education policy. No nation that has lost its language and writing has preserved its spirit and civilization. King Sejong cared only for his people; he did not expect them or future generations to remember him. That benevolent spirit led him to create Hangeul. With that kindness, he left us the extraordinary legacy of Hangeul. Yet we disregard his generosity and neglect the Korean alphabet.
Hangeul enables even society’s most disadvantaged people—those who have never had the chance to express their thoughts in writing, the so-called “dirt spoons”—to think, speak, and write. Through writing, they can develop their minds and culture and become fully realized human beings. Hangeul is truly a great writing system.
Hangeul is easy for anyone to learn, can express any language, and is a stroke of genius by King Sejong—an invention that is also highly convenient in the computer age. Chinese, for example, takes a long time to enter on a computer.
We’ll continue sharing entertaining stories about big-hit inventions that can make not only their inventors but also the rest of us rich.
The English edition is available on Amazon:
Attorney Sangki Lee
· Registered patent attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
· J.D., Loyola University School of Law
· Senior researcher, Landauer
· Researcher, Panasonic
· M.S. in Computer Science, University of Illinois
· B.S. in Computer Science, University of Illinois
Contact:
Email: sang@dream-law.com
Phone: 847-357-1358 ext 301
Fax: 847-357-1359
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