Noteworthy in this picture of a Seoul barbershop is the prevalence of
Chinese characters and the relative
absence of Hangul, the Korean writing system. Chinese characters have a long
history as the written language of the elite in Korea, and it wasn't until the
late 19th century that Hangul began to gain popularity. Some of that progress was reversed, however,
in the later years of colonial rule, when Japanese was imposed as the official language, and both spoken and written Korean was suppressed. (Chinese characters, some of which are still
used in written Japanese, remained acceptable.)
Courtesy of koreaBANG
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