During the colonial time when Park, Duseong invented Korean braille(HunmaingJeongeum), the transition from orality to literacy happened and the campaign to decrease illiteracy was performed actively with the official and non-official persecution of th...
During the colonial time when Park, Duseong invented Korean braille(HunmaingJeongeum), the transition from orality to literacy happened and the campaign to decrease illiteracy was performed actively with the official and non-official persecution of the colonial government against Korean language. Before, the invention of Korean braille by Park, Doseong was only examined in terms of the portrayal of a great person not considering social and cultural context of braille. In this paper, I argue that it is essential to understand the social and cultural context of Korean braille and its popularization, since braille was a new media for the blind to lead them to change traditional ways of learning such as reading and memorizing. In traditional Korea, the blind used to work as sorcerers or musicians. But with the spread of print culture such as newspaper and magazines, the traditional ways of learning for the blind were seen limited. Thus, an American missionary named Rosetta Hall started to teach Korean braille based on New York Point system. This system had many flaws to be widely used for the Korean blind and was mainly for bible teaching. At this time, Braille was widely introduced in newspaper or industrial exhibitions as a 'new media' symbolizing civilization. In the charity asylum for the blind, the Japanese braille was taught only to provide difficulties for the students, since they had to learn both academic medical vocabulary and Japanese at the same time. Park, Duseong invented Korean braille in this cultural context and worked hard to propagate this system with his students at the asylum. Moreover, the blind were widely distributed in all over Korean peninsular. Thus in order to educate them, correspondence education system was invented and many regional lectures were organized. To learn Korean braille was not just to obtain culture but to acquire practical skills of livelihood such as massagers and sorcerers. Therefore, the association of sorcerers even organized braille learning meeting. As a tool to live everyday life, Korean braille was introduced and became widely spread. Moreover, the fact that Park invented Korean braille while working at the asylum run by the colonial government. The invention of Korean braille and its popularization, the struggle to maintain indigenous life-world of the blind revealed ruptures of everyday life against oppressing colonial government. This was possible due to the practical nationalism of Park, Duseong and the strong will of the blind.