Do Koreans even exist? part 7. Conclusions

Continuing where we left off in the previous post, Gojoseon, ~1500 - 108 BCE.

Mumun: 1500 BCE-~800 BCE

Fuck. Mumun again.

1500 BCE

But the window has already closed.

How deflating.

But what does "the window has already closed" even mean?

It means that we are now able to trace Koreans back from today to an ancient past uninterrupted. A single line with no obvious gaps in between. Using Soil, Blood, Words, Stuff, Books, and Stories, we have managed to weave together a People across a span of 702,026 years, give or take a few thousand.

This doesn't mean Korean People are 702,026 years old.

That would be ridiculous.

But it also doesn't mean that Koreans are 129 years old either, back when King Gojong of Joseon declared the Han 韓 People into existence in 1897.

So the truth lies somewhere in between 700,000 BCE and 2026 CE.

So the question is when?

Or to put it more accurately,

To whom, and when, can modern Koreans reasonably claim ancestry to?

Obviously, people born 1,000 years ago would not be thinking of themselves as "Korean."

The concept of "Korea" is relatively new.

What we think today as a

Ethnicity,

State,

People,

Is fundamentally different from what it was just a hundred years ago.

The state was what:

extracted taxes and labor,

made sure there was some sort of order,

protected you from foreign invasions.

But to the average person what mattered more was:

the food on my table,

my family,

my fields and paddies,

my village,

my clan,

my life.

From ~700,000 - 45,000 BCE the people who lived in and around the Korean Peninsula were Homo Erectus, and the later Hominids. Some argue that they are not even related to Homo Sapiens at all. They lived here, but the traces they left are no longer visible in Koreans today.

Can modern Koreans reasonably lay a claim on them as ancestors?

What about the first Homo Sapiens, around ~45,000 BCE? They left traces, and if we squint hard, those traces are faintly visible in us. But we have no idea what their DNA looked like, what language they spoke, or even if they permanently lived on Korean Soil at all.

Are they Korean?

If not them, then how about the first settled Homo Sapiens, the Insipient Neolithic and Jeulmun Culture, around ~10,000 - ~6,000 BCE? They definitely lived on Korean Soil. In fact some couldn't escape if they wanted to. They were trapped in Jejudo, after the rising seas turned it into an island after the last Ice Age, as we saw in Gosanri.

They built permanent homes,

fished,

lived,

had children,

made pottery and tools,

and died.

Are they Korean?

And then there are the first Bronze Age people around 1500 BCE? Who began developing complex societies and state-like polities, around farming. Massive dolmens and fancy lute-shaped bronze daggers. Bringing together thousands of people just to bury dad under a massive boulder.

Are they Korean?

Perhaps it's when Koreanic began becoming the lingua franca with the Iron Age push starting around ~500 - ~300 BCE. This is also when a Chinese scribe first records them. Interestingly in a conversation about whether Gojoseon should invade Yan 燕 because of their insolence.

Are they Korean because some Chinese guy wrote it down?

Obviously, there are no easy answers.

One of my favorite poems of all time is found in the Jīrǎng Gē (격양가; 擊壤歌), “Song of Beating the Earth,” traditionally associated with the reign of the legendary sage-king Yao (堯, ~2300 BCE).

While the king was out on a walk he sees an old man out by the road playing an old throwing game. When asked what he thought of the emperor, the man replies:

日出而作，日入而息。
鑿井而飲，耕田而食。
帝力於我何有哉?

Sunrise, I work. Sunset, I rest.

I dig a well and drink. I plow the fields and eat.

What has the emperor got to do with me?

And the king walked away satisfied knowing he was doing a good job.

And that poem is true to this day.

I am an American,

a Korean,

a resident of Connecticut.

But on an every day basis none of those things mean anything to me. They barely cross my mind. I feel nothing on July 4, or August 15. I'm retired so holidays mean nothing to me. It's just another day.

But as soon as a Russian guy speaks smack about America, I'm American.

A Japanese guy speaks smack about Korea, I'm Korean.

Korea plays the USA in a Worldcup match, I'm torn.

If AI takes over the world, I'm probably going to turn into a Human, which is weird because I'm already human, but I guess the capital H in front of it is the fucking point.

And that's exactly the argument I'm trying to make.

To identify yourself as X, is a choice.

To be accepted as X, is someone else's choice.

And the ultimate test of these choices was what we talked about in the Gojoseon section.

When someone asks you to come,

Do you show up?

The Duck-Test was helpful

But in the end it doesn't define Who, What, Where, When, Why, or How you're Korean.

It doesn't even explain If you're Korean.

And it sure isn't constrained to the Korean Peninsula.

Gojoseon. Buyeo. Goguryeo. Okjeo. Balhae.

They were founded in the Songhwa-Liao World and the rugged Jangbaek/Changbai mountains.

This is where Koreanic comes from, and still remains in pockets to this day.

Heck, ancestors of the "Manchu/Jurchen" probably, no absolutely, considered themselves Korean, not in the modern sense of "Korean", but as subjects, allies, and kin of "Koreans." Perhaps they didn't even register the difference, despite the best efforts of Chinese scribes, and the sinocentric scholars who considered those books written by the hand of God.

But it's easy to forget that those same people called "Ye", "Maek", "Yemaek", "Yilou", "Mohe", Donghu":

lived in "Korea".

spoke "Korean".

married "Koreans".

had "Korean" babies.

fought for "Korea".

fought against "Koreans".

And died on "Korean" soil

No matter what anybody says, they left their mark on Korea, and to this day you cannot imagine Korea without those marks.

Same with the so called "Donghu" people. The Xiongnu, the Wuhuan (烏桓), the Xianbei (鮮卑), the Rouran (柔然), the Khitans (契丹) and the Shiwei (室韋).

They each left their indelible mark on the Korean soul. The bronze cauldron called Dongbok 동복 is a prime example of that. Why on earth were Dongbok buried with a dead Gaya king?

The Han 漢 Chinese commanderies in Lelang (樂浪), Xuantu (玄菟), Zhenfan (眞番), Lintun (臨屯) and the Daifang (帶方). The countless Chinese who traded with Koreans. Those who moved to Korea, like the founder of my own clan, the Namyang Hong Danghong-gye. The Chinese who moved to Incheon and gave us Jjajangmyeon. Who gave us the majority of the nouns and verbs we use today.

They left their indelible mark.

And so it continues.

Today there are approximately 1.88 million residents of non-Korean descent living in South Korea , around ~3.6% of the population.

living,

working,

marrying,

having children,

dying.

Leaving their marks.

And then there are 7,006,703 (a strangely specific number) ethnic Koreans living outside of South and North Korea.

living,

working,

marrying,

having children,

dying.

Some consider themselves Korean.

Others don't.

But when its Korea vs Japan in the Olympics,

they sure as fuck root for the Koreans.

And like me they're confused when its their own country playing against Korea.

As we said in the first post,

Us is a made up concept.

"I am Korean."

"Yes, you are Korean."

+ whatever else you need to keep saying this

---

So seriously, where do Koreans come from?

If you still insist on having a date for when Koreans first appeared, I have a few answers for you. It's up to you to decide which one works for you.

To support your own personal version of '+ whatever else you need to keep saying this.'

1. ~700,000 BCE.

Homo Erectus DNA, or any other early Hominid DNA exists on Korean Soil today.

None of their DNA can be found in modern Korean blood.

Obviously we don't use any of their Stuff.

But, the Soil they walked, lived, and died in, is the same Soil.

I can easily imagine someone thinking:

This cave is safe.

There is plenty to eat.

Clean water to drink from.

A good place to raise a family.

We should stay.

A choice.

And that choice is what matters.

They thought "I am Korean."

Not in those exact words, but in essence.

So to me, ~700,000 BCE is a perfectly valid answer.

2. ~10,000 BCE.

Now it's Homo Sapiens. And this time they definitely stayed. Not just stay, settle. And in Gosanri in Jejudo, they had no choice but to stay. They were stuck on an island.

83 kilometers to the Korean mainland.

200 kilometers to Japan.

500 kilometers to China.

And their descendents continued living there, and still live there to this day. It would require an extraordinary amount of evidence to prove that the entire Neolithic population of Jejudo was wiped out. And DNA evidence is not on the side of that argument.

And if the Gosanri argument holds, then the same argument is true for the mainland. Very little of them remain today. We can argue about whether D1a2a (D-M55 / D-M64) or C1a1 (C-M8) is Jeulmun on the Y-chromosome side, or whether M7a and N9b on the mtDNA side is Jeulmun. But you can't argue that they don't exist, and arguing that it isn't Jeulmun is much more difficult than arguing it is.

So if you need Blood as evidence, ~10,000 BCE is a perfectly valid answer.

As long as you're OK with a stronger evidentiary claim by our moms, because only a tiny % survive in our dads.

3. ~1,500 BCE.

Another perfectly valid choice. Korea when politics begin to emerge, and along with that social stratification. Millet farming, and later wet rice cultivation. Huge settlements, fancy burials, dolmens, dudes waving around bronze daggers, large-scale organized violence.

This is Max Weber's definition of a state:

"A human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."

~1,500 BCE perfectly fits that definition.

As to why you would need to have a State to define an ethnic group, that's just you. I can't answer that.

If you choose ~400 BCE - 400 CE, I'd assume you're using Koreanic as your standard for Korean.

Perfectly acceptable, but impossible to prove. And that's a pretty tough argument to make. I speak a little French, it doesn't make me France 0.0000000001% Korean.

If you choose 323 BCE, I'd think you're an ignorant fuck.

If you choose any time period after that, I'd think you're a racist ignorant fuck.

So three and a half dates. All valid in my opinion.

- ה -

Summing it all up

This is where I grow a pair and begin putting stakes in the ground.

I've looked at everything I could think of. Evaluated them with a fair, but critical eye. And I'm finally ready to put my own conclusions into words. Not because I'm 100% certain, but because I'm reasonably certain. Enough to defend what I say.

Let's try to bring everything we've learned so far into a coherent story. Best guess based on available evidence: Blood. Soil. Words. Stuff. Books. Stories. Applying what we know about Geography, Climate, and how people actually live and act.

Layer 1. Soil

Soil is the easy one.

To understand Korean soil you need to understand three things:

Mountain Ranges
Rivers
The Sea

These three things dictate how people move, how trade routes form, how armies travel, and how large-scale migrations unfold. There is simply no way around it.

Once we lay the terrain down first, the major cultural worlds become easier to place:

the Han Chinese world to the west and southwest
the steppe world to the north and northwest
Liaoxi, west of the Liao River
Liaodong, east of the Liao River, spreading toward the Korean Peninsula as far as the Han River
the Jilin / Buyeo sphere to the north
Jin-guk / Samhan in the south of the peninsula
an emerging Yayoi / Wa world in the Japanese archipelago

Once this is done the interaction routes almost draw themselves.

Liaodong is the great mixing pot.

Most major northern influences first flow into Liaodong.

Han influence traces the Bohai coast into Liaodong on land
They can also sail across the Bohai sea and Liaodong is the closest from Shandong
Steppe influences flow into Liaodong
Northern Jilin / Buyeo influences also flow into Liaodong

And from Liaodong, movement into the Korean Peninsula tends to follow the narrow western corridor:

first into the Daedong River basin,

↓

then the Han River basin,

↓

and from there farther south.

From the southern coast, the next great corridor is obvious:

Gimhae → Tsushima → Iki → northern Kyushu

That becomes one of the major routes by which movement, trade, and eventually migration pass into Japan.

There is one important exception.

The Jilin / Buyeo world in the north retained two alternative approaches into the peninsula:

Following the Amnok/Yalu, eventually joining the main western route
Following the Tumen, then moving south along the eastern side of the peninsula

These routes matter, especially for the northeastern world.

But compared to Liaodong, they are secondary.

If Korea is a crossroads, Liaodong is the gate.

The Songhua-Liao World is horse driven grass steppe culture.

The Changbai-Taebaek Mountains is mountains/forest culture.

The rest of Korea is settled farming culture, with ready access to the sea.

Korea is not one single, homogeneous, monolithic culture, it's always been a mixed culture with three beating souls.

The Soil dictates that.

- ה -

Layer 2. Stuff

Now that Soil has dictated the routes, we know exactly how Stuff travels and what Stuff sticks. Instead of listing all the Stuff again, I'm just going to summarize what we've learned and apply it here.

1. No one enters empty land. There is always someone already there.

We don't know exactly who the original people were, or what language they spoke, but people have existed on the Korean Peninsula since 40,000 BCE, perhaps earlier.

Everyone that came later entered their land.

I'll just call them the Jeulmun people for convenience.

In the middle to later stages, they were primarily field millet farmers, supplementing their food through hunting and foraging. Their homes looked similar to later Mumun homes on the outside (cone shaped), but their floors were much deeper into the earth, because they lacked the advanced timber framing and mud-packing techniques of later eras. The hearth was always located dead center in the floor plan ringed by river stones. Just enough for a small nuclear family.

When the Mumun people arrived, they were already in a state of decline, following 4.7 ka event.

2. Not one push. Multiple pushes.

The simplistic concept of a single group of people pushing in from Liaodong, carrying Mumun pottery and wet-rice agriculture, displacing existing populations, is simply not true. The archaeology does not support this.

They arrived in multiple trickles and waves.

3. At least 3-4 major population-driven pushes, and 2-3 smaller technology-led pushes occured.

Wet-rice agriculture and Mumun pottery (무문토기)
Dolmens, and later Table-top dolmens (탁자식 고인돌)
Lute-shaped Bronze Daggers (비파형동검), Bronze Mirrors, and other prestige items
Slender Bronze Dagger (세형동검)
Later Iron Technology and Rimmed Pottery (점토대형토기)
Ondol (온돌), the rather unique Korean way of heating floors.

4.1 Smaller technology-led pushes seems to have been relatively peaceful; selectively adopted, discarded, or often mixed into existing cultures.

Maybe more technology-led pushes occurred, but technologies that disappeared, by definition, left no traces. Some of the technology-led small scale pushes may have been adopted into existing elite networks. But no technology survived untouched. They changed and adapted to the people, through the people's hands.

Let's take food as an example.

Fermented soybeans became maeju, dwenjang and ganjang.

Maeju and hot peppers became gochujang.

When fermentation and peppers met Korean produce, they became modern kimchi.

Discarded US army Spam met all this and became budaejjigae.

And when you got sick of cooking you threw everything in a bowl, added rice and made bibimbap.

Yet the foundational flavor underneath all Korean food has remained garlic.

Dangun myth, garlic.

Always eaten with a bowl of semi-sticky rice.

nothing arrives untouched,

nothing stays foreign forever,

and adoption is not passive copying.

4.2 Larger population-driven pushes are also remarkably peaceful at first, cohabitation seems to be the norm, not invasion and conquest.

Different populations with different cultural markers seem to appear, then cohabitate for a long time, without signs of overt, prolonged conflict. However, although they lived near each other, they seem to have lived separate from each other.

Misongri-type pottery next to clay-rimmed.

Bronze-tipped arrows next to stone.

Chinese writing used to replicate Korean sounds.

Chinese characters weren't replacing Korean speech. Koreans grabbed somebody else's writing system and tortured it until it could write Korean.

Until Sejong said fuck this and invented Korean writing.

5. Dolmens are proof of stratification, but dolmen types seem to indicate a different type of polity.

Dolmens are everywhere; from Liaodong, to Pyongyang/Daedong, to the Han River, to the very southern tip of Korea
Table-top dolmens occur predominately to the north; from Liaodong to Pyongyand/Daedong, and mostly stop at the Han River.
Below the Han are very different dolmens.

Leaders still wanted to bury dad under boulders, they just didn't want to do it in the northern style.

⇒

This is remarkably close to the geographical world later associated with Gojoseon.

6. While dolmens are markers of polity type, ordinary domestic home style seems to be the more important marker of populations and culture.

Square type (□): Population A
Older western/northwestern settlement tradition, ultimately spreading through much of the peninsula.

Machengzi
→ Shuangtuozi
→ Pyongyang/Daedong region
→ Rest of Korea

Circle type (○): Population B
A genuinely different southern settlement tradition, with an extremely interesting disappearance/reappearance pattern toward Jeju and Kyushu.

Chungcheongdo
→ South of Korea
→ Disappears
→ Appears in Jeju and Kyushu

Rectangle type (▭): Population A'
Coincides with lute-shaped daggers, possibly the homes of clan leaders or meeting halls. Generally overlaps with □-type homes, but also appears in ○ villages.

Rounded rectangle type (▣): Population C
A genuinely different northeastern settlement tradition associated with the Iron Age.

Xintuanshan
→ Bueyo
→ Goguryeo

<□-type homes>

<○-type homes>

7. □ arrives first, ○ arrives later and coexists, ▭ type emerges, ▣ arrives later from the northeast.

□ is an established Machengzi/Shuangtuozi Liaodong style
○ emerges in Chungcheongdo, the middle of Korea. No idea where it came from.
▣ is an established Xintanshuan/Buyeo/Goguryeo northeastern style.

<□ type village>

<○ type village>

8. □ and ○ coexist together for a long time, in adjacent yet separate places

In Songgukri, the square (□) /rectangle (▭) homes were primarily clustered on the hilltops and upper slopes. The circular (○) dwellings were built surrounding them on the lower slopes. Despite this separation, both groups utilized the exact same artifacts.

<Songgukri-style Mumun pottery>

This was not peculiar to Songguk-ri. Around Cheonan and Asan the same pattern repeatedly appears: mixed square and circular settlements at Namgwan-ri and Eopseong-dong, spatially separated circular and rectangular groups at Deokji-ri, and three near-contemporary house traditions living almost on top of one another at Jangjae-ri.

This happened from 700 - 500/400 BCE, around 200-300 years of coexistence.

9.1 □ and ▭ solidifies from Liaodong down through northwestern Korea to the Han River into the region later associated with Gojoseon. This broadly coincides with the strongest concentration of tabletop dolmens.

North of the Han, Bronze Age settlement traditions are overwhelmingly quadrilateral: square, rectangular, and long-rectangular houses dominate from Liaodong through the Yalu, Cheongcheon, Daedong, Hwanghae, and into the Han basin.

The same broad region also contains the strongest concentration of table-type dolmens.

Liaodong alone has hundreds of dolmens, with table-type examples especially concentrated in its southern zone. In northwestern Korea, the tradition becomes even more monumental: enormous tabletop dolmens appear around places such as Eunyul, Anak, Yeontan, and Yonggang. Some capstones exceed 25 tons, with individual examples estimated at more than 80 tons. One study estimated that constructing the largest monuments could require the labor of over 1,000 people, implying communities capable of mobilizing populations in the thousands.

Moving south, the pattern changes sharply.

Table-type dolmens do continue below the Han, so the river is not a hard cultural border. But their numbers fall rapidly, the classic large box-like tabletop forms disappear, and monumental examples become much less common. One comparative study specifically identifies a major contrast between the Liaodong–Daedong–Han region and areas farther south.

This gives us an interesting archaeological zone:

Liaodong

↓

northwestern Korea / Daedong basin

↓

Han River

characterized by:

□ / ▭ houses
large tabletop dolmens
increasing hierarchy and labor mobilization
later strong connections through the lute-shaped bronze-dagger network

That geographic package substantially overlaps the territory that later written sources associate with Gojoseon.

This does not mean every tabletop dolmen was built by “Gojoseon,” or that the dolmen distribution gives us a political border. It may instead preserve the footprint of the older social world from which Gojoseon emerged.

The dolmens themselves may even tell us something about the kind of polity involved. Many were not merely graves. Some Liaodong tabletop monuments appear to have functioned as ritual monuments or territorial markers between kin groups, while the largest northwestern Korean examples required enough coordinated labor to imply substantial chiefly authority.

So rather than imagining an early centralized state with a line on a map, the archaeology may be showing a network of related agricultural communities and chiefdoms sharing burial ideology, settlement traditions, and exchange networks, which gradually consolidated into what later observers called Gojoseon.

If ○ marks a new southern population network, then □ north of the Han may preserve an older western political tradition that was already becoming Gojoseon before the southern □/○ conflict intensified.

9.2 Around 500-400 BCE, south of the Han River, □ and ○ show increasing levels of conflict.

This does not look like random interpersonal violence. Settlements begin spending enormous amounts of collective labor preparing for organized attacks.

Defensive settlements: villages are surrounded by deep enclosing ditches, wooden palisades, earthen banks, and other barriers. At Daepyeong, some settlements had multiple defensive lines. Archaeologists studying the Nam River settlements conclude that their primary purpose was fortification and that the region experienced repeated warfare.
Weapons: bows and arrows appear particularly important. Analysis of the Daepyeong assemblage suggests ranged weapons were preferred over stone daggers and spears, which helps explain the need for ditches, palisades, and banks.
Dead people: decapitated/headless individuals occur, together with weapons in burials. These have been interpreted as actual victims of warfare rather than simply symbolic military equipment.
Burned settlements: at Songguk-ri, the majority of burned dwellings are square houses. Conflict with the circular-house population has specifically been proposed as an explanation, although deliberate burning during rebuilding remains possible.
Increasing territoriality: square and circular communities had already coexisted for generations. In the Nam River basin, square houses appear first; circular houses later establish themselves around existing settlement margins and in new tributary settlements. By the later phase both exist together in an increasingly complex, densely occupied landscape.

10. ○ keeps moving south through an already □ landscape. It never completely replaces □ everywhere, but becomes dominant across large parts of the southwest and eventually reaches Jeju. Later, during the Iron Age transition, ▣-type houses become dominant.

The spread is not a clean conquest line.

In Chungcheong, □ is there first. ○ appears later and the two coexist.

In Honam, ○ becomes extremely successful. In one survey of 72 Bronze Age houses, 37 were circular (51%), 22 square (31%), and 13 rectangular (18%). So by this stage, circular houses are no longer a peripheral curiosity; they are the most common residential form in the sample.

In the Nam River basin, the sequence again appears to be □ first, followed by ○. In some tributary valleys the circular houses appear after the square houses, while the two traditions eventually share extremely similar pottery and internal house technology. Whatever distinction originally separated them was already becoming blurred.

But ○ never simply sweeps every □ settlement away.

In southeastern Korea, especially around the Geomdan-ri cultural zone of Ulsan–Daegu–Gyeongju, square houses remain strong throughout the period. Along the lower Geumho River, □ houses continue alongside Songguk-ri elements, producing a genuine cultural frontier rather than simple replacement.

So the Late Bronze Age peninsula is becoming a mosaic:

north and central Korea: overwhelmingly □ / ▭

Chungcheong: □ + ○

Honam: increasingly ○

Nam River: □ + ○

southeast: strong □ tradition with ○ intrusion

Jeju: increasingly ○

Songguk-ri culture ultimately spreads across Chungcheong, Jeolla, Gyeongsang, Jeju and even Kyushu, so ○ clearly has enormous demographic/cultural success.

Jeju is perhaps the clearest endpoint. Circular houses become widespread there and persist extraordinarily late. Importantly, researchers caution that what survives into later periods is specifically the circular dwelling tradition, not the entire original Songguk-ri cultural package.

Then the direction reverses.

During the Iron Age, Honam houses become predominantly ▣, explicitly contrasting with the mainly circular Bronze Age pattern.

So ○ does not ultimately “win Korea.” It expands through the south, becomes dominant in some regions, reaches Jeju and Kyushu, and then gradually disappears as a distinct mainland house tradition while ▣ becomes dominant during the Iron Age.

11. Starting around 900 BCE, people from southern Korea begin crossing into northern Kyushu, bringing wet-rice agriculture and pieces of the Mumun cultural package. The Songguk-ri ○ package follows and eventually becomes a major component of early Yayoi.

But not all at once.

First there's a trickle: ~900–700 BCE.

Initial Yayoi. Wet-rice agriculture appears in northern Kyushu; charred rice from the Yusu 1 horizon dates around 842–806 BCE. The pottery and tools show southern Korean influence, but Jōmon traditions remain dominant and the immigrant presence looks limited.

Then a stream: ~700–600 BCE.

During Yusu 2, another southern-Korean cultural pulse reaches northern Kyushu, this time particularly from the lower Nakdong/southern peninsula. Korean-style tools, pottery, wooden-coffin burial and agricultural practices become more deeply embedded. Recent ancient-DNA work independently estimates that Korean-related/Jōmon admixture was already occurring by roughly 2,600 years ago, around the mid-7th century BCE.

Then a flood: ~600–400 BCE.

This is the big one. The number of Yayoi settlements in northern Kyushu rises sharply at exactly the time the archaeological population of Songguk-ri communities in southwestern Korea declines. Songguk-ri houses, pottery and stone tools occur together in western Japan, and researchers have explicitly proposed large-scale migration of Songguk-ri farmers during this interval.

Then it stops being ○: ~400–300 BCE.

Not because migration across the strait stops. It doesn't. Rather, the migrant Songguk-ri population and indigenous Jōmon population have by then increasingly mixed into a new archaeological society: Yayoi. The separate ○/Songguk-ri immigrant identity becomes progressively impossible to track as such.

12. There are two large Iron-Age transition pushes into Korea: one in 5th/4th century BCE, and another in 2nd/1st century BCE.

Push 1. roughly 5th - 4th centuries BCE.

This is initially still a bronze-and-stone world.

Bronze takes over prestige and military functions first, while practical tools remain largely stone:

stone dagger → slender bronze dagger

But axes, harvesting tools, chisels, and many arrowheads are still stone.

It represents,

old Mumun system → new northern prestige/political system.

Dolmens begin declining. Wooden-coffin graves become increasingly important. The old Songguk-ri settlement system disappears region by region. Bronze becomes more concentrated in individual elite burials.

Then comes the second push.

Push 2. roughly 2nd–1st centuries BCE

Now Warring States-derived iron technology moves south in quantity. In Yeongnam, the archaeological sequence is particularly clear: during the early 2nd century BCE, imported iron appears alongside round and triangular clay-rim pottery; during the later 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, iron increasingly replaces the old polished-stone toolkit.

The technological replacement is almost item-for-item:

stone dagger → slender bronze dagger / iron sword
stone arrowhead → iron arrowhead
stone sickle / harvesting knife → iron sickle
stone chisel → iron chisel

stone axe → iron axe

By around the beginning of the Common Era, one detailed study of Yeongnam concludes that almost every major functional category of polished stone tool had been replaced by iron, apart from things such as grinding stones.

And this second wave is happening during a period of enormous political disruption farther north.

The Qin–Han transition produced substantial population movements, including Yan-associated refugees moving into the Gojoseon sphere; Wiman's own group belongs to this broader movement. Then further disruption follows through the 2nd century BCE, culminating in the destruction of Wiman Joseon in 108 BCE.

Once again, the newcomers do not simply erase the people already there. Their pottery, houses, burial customs and technology enter existing communities, mix with local traditions, and eventually help create the societies we later call Mahan, Jinhan and Byeonhan.

13. Migration from the Korean Peninsula to Japan continues through Yayoi, Kofun, and into Asuka. But its character changes.

The original agricultural migration never really shuts off. Instead, the Korea Strait remains an active population corridor for more than a millennium.

Yayoi: farmers, families, agriculture, metal technology

Kofun: craftsmen, ironworkers, potters, horse specialists, administrators, elites and families

Asuka: increasingly documented political migrants, specialists and refugees

By the 4th–6th centuries CE, the relationship is particularly intense between Wa and Gaya/Baekje. Korean-peninsula migrants bring or greatly expand technologies including:

ironworking
Sue ware kiln technology
horse breeding and riding
metalworking
irrigation
new cooking/heating systems
writing and literate administration

Japanese archaeological scholarship actually describes the 5th century as a “century of technological innovation”, with many of these technologies arriving through people moving from the peninsula rather than through objects alone.

Gaya–Wa interaction remains intense through the Kofun period. Gaya polities combine iron production with maritime trade and maintain long-running relations with Wa until Gaya finally disappears in 562 CE.

But Gaya's collapse does not end migration.

Nor does Baekje's.

In fact, Baekje's destruction in 660 and the defeat of the restoration movement at Baekgang in 663 produce another very visible migration pulse: Baekje aristocrats, officials, specialists and ordinary refugees flee to Japan. Goguryeo's fall in 668 generates another displacement. These people enter an already deeply connected Japanese state.

So the sequence is better understood as:

~900 BCE onward: agricultural migration

→ Yayoi: sustained demographic movement

→ Kofun, 3rd–6th c. CE: continuing immigration + intense Gaya/Baekje/Wa exchange

→ 562: Gaya collapses; movement continues

→ 660–663: Baekje collapses; refugee migration actually increases

→ 668: Goguryeo collapses; another refugee movement

→ late 7th–8th c.: the old migration system finally changes character

It doesn't literally stop. The prehistoric population corridor becomes a state-to-state corridor.

- ה -

Layer 3. Words

Trying to figure out the language of a long gone people is incredibly difficult. The fact that Koreans used Chinese letters to approximate their sounds and meaning isn't helpful either. It's unfortunate that no one had an iPhone back then.

But we have logic, and reason, and tiny snippets of evidence.

First the evidence/facts:

1. People in Japanese speak Japanese.

2. To get to Japan you have to cross a sea. You had no other choice.

⇒

In 1500 BCE, the only feasible way was from the southern Korean coast to Kyushu.

Direct China to Japan sea routes only became possible during the Tang Dynasty

Two additional potential routes:

(1) North from Sakhalin to Hokkaido

(2) Island hopping from Taiwan to the Ryukus to Kyushu

But neither help the Japonic language.

3. The original inhabitants of Japan, the Jomon people, the ancestors of the Ainu, don't speak Japanese, nor is their language related to Japanese.

4. Korea is only 50 kilometers away from Tsushima Island, and 200 kilometers away from Kyushu.

⇒

In 1000 BCE, that would have been in an open dugout canoe powered by hand oars and primitive sails.

The Korea to Japan trip would be done in 3 legs:

Leg 1. Korea → Tsushima (49.5 kms): 10 - 14 hours

Leg 2. Tsushima → Iki (48 kms): 10 - 13 hours

Leg 3. Iki → Kyushu (24 kms): 5 - 7 hours

* Dugout canoes were discovered in:

Torihama shell midden (Fukui Prefecture, Japan)

Bibongri site (Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea)

* Evidence of trade:

Korea → Japan: Mumun pottery

Japan → Korea: Obsidian tools

5. Early Yayoi people's used the same technology package as those on the Korean Peninsula.

⇒

Wet-rice agriculture, and related technology and tools
Dry-field secondary crops (millet)
Pigs and other domesticated animals
Mumun pottery
Bronze prestige objects (swords, daggers, spears, mirrors, bronze bells)
Weaving technology
Circle houses
Ditched settlements

6. No one in Korea, or Liaoxi, Liaodong, or mainland China speaks Japanese.

7. Some Japonic words survive in Korea.

⇒

Toponym in Gaya

Toponyms in the Han River area after Goguryeo conquered the area from Baekje

Now the question:

Which languages did the following speak?

□ (square home people)?

○ (circle home people)?

▣ rounded circular home people)?

The only logical conclusion is:

○? = Japonic

⇒

○ Korea → ○ Kyushu → Yayoi → Japanese

▭/▣ = Koreanic

⇒

▣ Buyeo / Goguryeo (Jilin) → Pyongyang/Daedong → Han River → Rest of Korea

As to □, that's anybody's guess. My guess is Koreanic, but others say Japonic.

- ה -

Layer 4. Blood

Ahh DNA. The promise that goes nowhere.

Let's start mapping DNA to the interaction map, using as much ancient DNA we can get our hands on. Unfortunately, Korea still eats its dead, so the Korean DNA is a modern sample.

Korea is not the source of people, it is almost an end point.

Most everything gets blended in Liaodong, and pushes into Korea.

Then some of it ends up in Japan.

Let's start with Y-DNA, daddy genes.

O2-M122 is the Chinese agriculture marker.
Moving up China, entering Liaodong, then from there into Korea.
C2-M217 is the northern marker.
Moving down from Buyeo/Goguryeo into Korea.
O1b2-M176 is the Korean/Yayoi marker.
Seeming to emerge in Korea and then moving to Japan.
Everything else is minor.

Next mtDNA, mommy genes.

D is the North Asian mother marker.
She's everywhere in the #1 spot (except in Southern Han China).
B is the Southern Asian mother marker.
She travelled everywhere, but not in D numbers.
The M7a subclade seems to be a Korea-Japan coastal mother marker.
Perhaps Korea's only remaining remnant of Jeulmun.

Male Jeulmun (D1) basically disappeared from Korea, but Female Jeulmun (M7a) survived.

Our most likely Japonic-speaking Male (O1b2) survived, but instead of Japonic, speaks Koreanic (C2).

It basically corroborates everything that Soil, Stuff, Words has said. Nothing really new to add.

Except for a silly observation:

C2 represents 12-18% of the male population.
Koreanic represents 100% of the language spoken on the Korean Peninsula.
That's some good ROI. That's a 5.6X-8.3X return. Impressive.

That's it.

Unless someone can find ancient DNA that Korea hasn't eaten.

- ה -

Layer 5. Books

In 1500 BCE, books are useless. The Chinese writing system wasn't even invented then. So this is a very short section.

Even when writing becomes more prevalent, it's mostly "to the east, those guys" bullshit, interspersed by "our ten guys defeated a gazillion Koreans without breaking a sweat" crap.

For some reason, most historians still argue that Koreans only appeared when some Chinese dude wrote it down in a book to this day. LLMs trained on these arguments are pretty much the same. Ask GPT about Gojoseon, and you'll know what I mean.

For most of early Korean history, you spend more time fighting books then being helped by them. You have to keep pointing out things like,

People can't teleport

The Chinese army did not have Thanos

Horse culture cannot come from a civilization that didn't have horses

- ה -

Layer 6. Stories

Let me introduce all the founding myths of ancient Korea in one place.

Buyeo: Dongmyeong

A maid of the king of Buyeo's northern neighbor became pregnant after a strange light descended from heaven and followed her. The king thought the child unnatural and tried repeatedly to kill him. He was thrown among pigs and horses, but the animals protected him. He grew into an extraordinary archer named Dongmyeong. When the king's men turned against him, he fled south. Reaching a great river with his pursuers behind him, Dongmyeong struck the water with his bow. Fish and turtles rose and formed a bridge beneath his feet. He crossed. His pursuers could not. On the other side, Dongmyeong founded a new kingdom.

Goguryeo: Jumong

Yuhwa, daughter of the river god Habaek, was shut away after meeting the heavenly prince Hae Mosu. But sunlight followed her into the room, and soon she laid a huge egg. King Geumwa tried to destroy it. Dogs and pigs would not eat it. Birds covered it with their wings. Horses avoided trampling it. Finally the egg cracked and a boy emerged. He became Jumong, “the great archer.” Jealous princes eventually forced him to flee Buyeo with a few companions. At a river, with soldiers closing behind him, Jumong called upon heaven and his divine ancestry. Fish and turtles again rose from the water and carried him across. He reached Jolbon, built a new kingdom there, and called it Goguryeo.

Baekje: Biryu and Onjo

When Jumong's son Yuri arrived from Buyeo and became heir to Goguryeo, Jumong's other sons, Biryu and Onjo, knew there would be no kingdom for them. Their mother Soseono gathered her people and led them south. At Mt. Bukhansan the brothers looked over the land and chose different futures. Biryu went west to the sea at Michuhol. Onjo chose the Han River basin and founded a settlement at Wiryeseong. Biryu's land proved harsh and salty while Onjo's prospered. Ashamed, Biryu died. His people left Michuhol and joined Onjo, and the new kingdom became Baekje.

Silla: Hyeokgeose

Six village chiefs already ruled the valleys around Gyeongju when they gathered one day beside the Alcheon stream and saw a strange light shining from the forest near Najeong. A white horse was kneeling there as if bowing to something. When the chiefs approached, the horse rose into the sky, leaving behind a great egg. Inside was a beautiful boy whose body seemed to shine. They named him Hyeokgeose. Nearby, at Aryeong well, a dragon appeared and a girl was born from its side. She became Aryeong. The six chiefs raised the two children, and when they came of age they made Hyeokgeose king and Aryeong queen. The six villages became Saro.

Silla again: Talhae

Across the sea, a queen laid an enormous egg. Her husband declared such a birth impossible and ordered it thrown away, so the queen placed the egg in a chest with treasure and servants and sent it onto the ocean. The chest drifted until it reached the coast of Silla, where an old woman found it and discovered a boy inside. He became Talhae. Clever and ambitious, Talhae made his way into the Silla court, married into the royal family, and eventually became king. A child thrown into the sea as something foreign and monstrous ended up wearing the crown.

Silla yet again: Kim Alji

One night during King Talhae's reign, a white rooster began crowing deep inside the forest of Sirim. The king sent Hogong to investigate. Hanging from the branch of a tree was a golden chest, surrounded by light. When they opened it, they found a baby boy inside. The king brought him into the palace and named him Alji. The forest itself was renamed Gyerim, “Rooster Forest.” Alji never became king, but generations later his descendants did. The Kim clan eventually became Silla's dominant royal house.

Gaya: Suro

Before there was Gaya, nine chiefs ruled the people around Gujibong. One day a voice came from heaven and ordered the people to gather on the mountain, dance, and sing:

“Turtle, turtle, show your head.

If you do not, we will roast and eat you.”

They sang and danced until a golden box descended from heaven wrapped in red cloth. Inside were six golden eggs. The next morning the eggs cracked open and six boys emerged. The first was Suro. He became king of Geumgwan Gaya, while the other five boys became kings of the other Gaya states. Later a princess named Heo Hwang-ok crossed the sea from the distant land of Ayuta because heaven had told her parents that Suro was waiting for her. She became his queen.

Now let's revisit the Gojoseon myth again: Dangun

Hwanung, son of the Lord of Heaven, looked down at the human world and wanted to live there. His father gave him three heavenly seals and sent him down with 3,000 followers. Hwanung descended beneath a sacred tree on Mt. Taebaek with the ministers of wind, rain, and clouds. He taught people about grain, life, sickness, punishment, good and evil, and hundreds of other human affairs.

A bear and a tiger came to him and begged to become human. Hwanung gave them mugwort and garlic and told them to remain out of the sunlight. The tiger gave up. The bear endured and became a woman, Ungnyeo. But she had no husband and prayed beneath the sacred tree for a child. Hwanung took human form and joined with her.

Their son was Dangun Wanggeom.

He founded Joseon.

And the purpose of the new world Hwanung had descended to create was given in three words:

弘益人間.

Benefit humanity.

Do you see it?

The pattern?

It's so obvious.

Every single one.

Existing People

→ New people arrive

→ They bring something new

→ They coexist, marry, combine

→ A new Us forms

It's not just the myths.

It's everything that Soil, Stuff, Blood, Words, and Books have been saying throughout the entire series.

Blah, blah, blah.

And I have the perfect example to help let this sink in.

It's the image that's at the top of this post.

And it's called Budaejjigae.

This is the recipe.

The Broth:

4 cups rich beef or pork bone broth (anchovy-kelp stock works as a lighter alternative)
Kimchi: 1 cup highly fermented, sour kimchi, roughly chopped (the older and more acidic, the better the broth will balance the rich meats)

Vegetables:

Onion: 1/2 small onion, grated or finely minced (this allows the onion to completely melt into the broth for sweetness without leaving any large pieces behind)
Scallions: 3 stalks, sliced diagonally (reserve a small handful of very finely sliced greens for garnish)
Mushrooms: 1 small pack enoki mushrooms and/or sliced shiitake
Tofu: 1/2 block firm or medium-firm tofu, sliced
You can added peppers, zuchchini, crown daisy etc. whatever you want according to taste and what's available in your pantry.

The Meats:

Spam: 1 can (12 oz), cut into 1/4-inch thick slices
Sausages: 2-3 high-quality smoked sausages or hot dogs, sliced diagonally
Ground Pork: 1/4 lb ground pork or thinly sliced pork belly for extra richness
Bacon: how ever much you want. You can't go wrong with bacon.

The Spicy Sauce (yangnyeomjang):

3 tbsp Korean chili flakes (gochugaru)
1 tbsp Korean chili paste (gochujang)
1 tbsp soup soy sauce (guk-ganjang)
1 tbsp regular soy sauce (ganjang)
1 tbsp rice wine or mirin
5 cloves garlic, finely minced
A heavy pinch of black pepper
Ramen soup for extra umami if you want it
You can add a bit of sugar, MSG, plum extract, or even curry powder if you want.

The Add-ins:

Baked beans
Instant ramen noodles, or any type of noodle you like
American sliced cheese (preferably Kraft singles)
Rice cakes (tteok)

Assembly & Cooking:

Build the Pot: In a wide, shallow pot (a nabe pot works perfectly), arrange the Spam, sausages, tofu, mushrooms, sour kimchi, and scallions in a circle around the edge.
Add the Core: Place the grated/minced onion, baked beans, and the spicy sauce mixture directly in the center.
Pour and Boil: Pour the broth gently over the ingredients. Bring the pot to a medium-high boil.
Simmer and Stir: Once boiling, use a spoon to gently dissolve the spicy sauce into the broth. Let it boil rapidly for 5-7 minutes so the fats from the sausages and Spam render out and marry with the acidic kimchi and spicy sauce.
Noodles and Cheese: Nestle the dry ramen noodles right into the center of the bubbling stew. Place the slice of American cheese directly on top of the noodles.
Garnish and Serve: Cook for another 3 minutes until the noodles are chewy and the cheese has melted into the broth. Top with the finely garnished scallions and serve immediately alongside steamed rice.

Serves 3 to 4.

Now let's look at each of the ingredients.

The Korean ingredients:

Cows and pigs have been raised in Korea for at least 5,000 years, if not more.
Anchovies are caught in the seas that surround it.
Soybeans, scallions, garlic have been cultivated since...forever. As in Dangun myth, forever.
Soup soy sauce and tofu come from soybeans, ancient.
Fermentation techniques are as old as the people.
Rice (for tteok) arrived in Korea around 1500 BCE.

The Chinese ingredients:

Napa cabbage (that go into kimchi) was introduced around the 13th century.
Black pepper was introduced during the Goryeo dynasty, which itself got it from the Malabar Coast of southern India.

The Japanese ingredients:

Regular soy sauce was introduced during the late 19th century.
Chilli peppers, where gochujang and gochugaru comes from, came to Korea during the Japanese invasion in 1592, via the Portuguese. Which is kinda interesting because the Japanese really don't like spicy food.
Instant ramen was invented by Momofuku Ando in 1958, and somehow made its way to Korea in 1963.

The American ingredients:

Spam, Sausages, Bacon, and American sliced cheese all arrived in Korea during the Korean War, in 1950.

Budaejjigae literally means "Army Base Stew." It's incredibly popular and you can get it in almost every neighborhood in Korea. But its origins lie in the absolute starvation and trauma of the immediate post-Korean War era. It is literally a dish born out of garbage.

When the Korean War ended in 1953, the peninsula was reduced to ash. Agricultural infrastructure was destroyed, livestock was wiped out, and the civilian population faced a catastrophic famine. The only places with a surplus of calories were the United States military bases stationed in cities like Uijeongbu, Pyeongtaek, and Dongducheon.

Because legitimate food was unavailable, impoverished Koreans, often women and children, would scavenge through the garbage cans outside American military mess halls. They collected whatever the soldiers threw away: half-eaten hot dogs, discarded slices of Spam, leftover baked beans, and macaroni.

This was not excess supply; it was literal refuse. The scavenged scraps were frequently mixed with cigarette butts, napkins, and chewing gum. Desperate mothers would bring these buckets of trash home, pick out the inedible garbage, and wash the discarded meat scraps in water just to make them safe to eat.

American processed meats were intensely salty, heavily processed, and uncomfortably greasy for a population accustomed to a plant-and-grain-based diet. Furthermore, the meat scraps often tasted rancid or carried the smell of the mess hall trash.

To make the scavenged scraps palatable, and to stretch a few handfuls of meat to feed an entire starving family, Koreans threw the washed scraps into a large pot of boiling water. They loaded the broth with the strongest, most pungent native ingredients they could find: highly fermented, sour kimchi, massive amounts of garlic, and gochujang (red chili paste).

The intense spice and acidity weren't originally a culinary choice; they were a survival mechanism used to cut the foreign grease, mask the taste of the trash, and sanitize the meat.

Today, budae jjigae is a staple of Korean pop culture, eaten in trendy restaurants and enjoyed with drinks. But at its core, the recipe is a culinary scar, a direct record of a starving people using foreign garbage and native spice to survive the destruction of their country.

Existing food culture

→ New people arrive

→ They bring something new

→ They coexist, marry, combine

→ A new Dish forms

Budaejjigae is the dish that best exemplifies the story we've been following.

Budaejjigae is not Korean because every ingredient in it came from Korea.

Quite obviously, they didn't.

It is Korean because Koreans took everything that arrived, kept what they liked, threw away what they didn't, changed the rest, mixed it with what was already there, and eventually stopped worrying about where each ingredient came from.

Spam did not become kimchi. Kimchi did not become Spam. Ramen did not become tteok. They are all still recognizable.

But put them together in this particular pot, cook them in this particular way, and something exists that did not exist before.

Budaejjigae.

That's basically the story we've been following for the last seven posts.

Koreans aren't one ingredient.

Korea is the pot.

I know the spam might throw you off a bit, but you should try it. It's actually quite delicious. It's awesome with some soju and beer. Soju is ancient, and I thank the Japanese who gave us beer, which they got from the Germans.

Funny thing is, Korean beer sucks pretty bad.

- ה -

Two questions started this journey.

Where do Koreans come from?

Do Koreans even exist?

That led to:

8 Posts.

104,073 Words.

And this is where I started. The only thing I was absolutely sure about in the very beginning.

Someone left Africa. ✔
We now have a bunch of People calling themselves Korean. ✔

And then I started tracing backwards, and got to:

Someone left Africa. ✔
Modern Koreans (South and North) have a reasonably strong reason to believe they came from Joseon. ✔
We now have a bunch of People calling themselves Korean. ✔

And very quickly it looked like this:

I looked at Soil;

Geography, Climate, Sea and Land routes in and out of the peninsula.

I looked at Blood;

Y-chromosome, mtDNA, and autosomal.

I looked at Stuff;

House shapes, Dolmens, Floor heating systems, more Bronze stuff than I care to remember.

I looked at Words;

Korean, Japanese, Tungusic, Mongolian, and Chinese.

I looked at Books;

A precious few written by Koreans, Japanese ones written by people who had an explicit desire to extinguish Korea, and a lot of Chinese ones that were frankly racist as fuck and inaccurate that my first instinct was to distrust, not acknowledge.

And finally Stories;

Bears turning into humans, the Son of God descending on earth, some strange-ass song about eating a turtle.

And ironically, the thing that helped me the most, ended up being Stories.

For in the end, just like I suspected from the very start, "Korean" is a fictional construct.

But just because it's fiction doesn't mean it isn't real.

It's as real as any lute-shaped bronze dagger, the Sanguozhi, the Language I speak, the blood that flows through my veins, or even the land that I stand on right now.

Because I feel it in my soul.

And who are you to question whether my soul exists.

But the greatest learning that I gained throughout this journey is this.

Just because I claim an Us, does not negate someone else's claim on the same Us.

Replace Korean with:

Japanese

German

Jewish

Kurdish

Han Chinese

English

Lakota

Luo

Yanomami

Arrernte

It's going to result in the same convoluted journey.

"I am X."

"Yes, you are X."

+ whatever else you need to keep saying this

So if you're the type of person that insists on claiming an Us with the exclusion of any other person, get comfortable with saying:

"I am African."

That's the only intellectually honest thing you can do.

Fuck Blood and Soil.

- ה -

On Us

These are the things I want to remember:

The vast trade networks and cosmopolitan societies of Gaya, Balhae, Baekje and Jang Bogo.

The "Fuck it. Come at me bro." defiance of Goguryeo and Balhae.

The tenacity, resilience and grit shown by Goryeo and Joseon under insurmountable odds.

The refusal to break under the cultural genocide of the Japanese occupation.

The ability to push all that into Han 한, yet, always remembering Us.

The founding humanism of Gojoseon and King Sejong.

These are the things I want to forget:

Losing a nation without firing a single shot.

Collapsing from within, again and again.

Forcing, no, contorting Us to fit a dominant hegemony.

For the mountains have always been our greatest friend.

Swallowing every invader.

Guiding every friend.

Feet pointed south.

Heart planted north.

The land has accepted all who come and toil its soil.

Never wealthy, but generous to those who will live with it, work for it, and accept it.

Bountiful enough that people can simply be:

Born.

Have children.

Raise a family.

Bury their dead.

And continue living.

Generation after generation.

In a place where someone has always existed.

Where new people constantly arrive and are welcomed.

Where both share their knowledge to create a new Us.

Slightly different from the old Us.

Where old Us and new Not-Us,

blur

mix

combine

And becomes undeniably Korean.

Bibimbap.

Budaejjigae.

KFC.

弘益人間

홍익인간

⇓

訓民正音

훈민정음

나랏말ᄊᆞ미 듕귁에 달아

문ᄍᆞᆼ와로 서르 ᄉᆞᄆᆞᆺ디 아니ᄒᆞᆯᄊᆡ

이런 젼ᄎᆞ로 어린 백셩이 니르고져 호ᇙ 배 이셔도

ᄆᆞᄎᆞᆷ내 제 ᄠᅳ들 시러 펴디 몯ᄒᆞᇙ 노미 하니라

내 이ᄅᆞᆯ 위ᄒᆞ야 어엿비 너겨

새로 스믈여듧 자ᄅᆞᆯ ᄆᆡᇰᄀᆞ노니

사ᄅᆞᆷ마다 ᄒᆡᅇᅧ 수ᄫᅵ 니겨 날로 ᄡᅮ메 뼌ᅙᅡᆫ킈 ᄒᆞ고져 ᄒᆞᇙ ᄯᆞᄅᆞ미니라.

"Because the speech of our nation is different from that of China,
it does not communicate natively through Chinese characters.
Therefore, even when the unlettered people have something they wish to express,
many are ultimately unable to unfold their true thoughts.
Moved by deep compassion for this,

I have newly created twenty-eight letters.
My sole desire is that all people may easily learn them and find daily comfort in their use."

So in the end Kim Ilsung was right.

Dangun really did exist.

Perhaps not in a giant mausoleum somewhere in Pyongyang.

But in the living soul of everyone who believes they are Korean.

"I am Korean."

"Yes, you are Korean."

+ whatever else you need to keep saying this

- ה -

Thank you very much for staying with me thoughout the journey.

Find a restaurant that sells Budaejjigae.

Have a glass, or two, of Somaek.

And if you aren't Korean,

find your Us.

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