Our New Family Motto

One thing I want to make sure I don't miss out on while living in Korea, is the culture of the people and the country.  So when I found this class offering hanging scrolls written with your 가훈 (kahoon -- family motto), I signed Peter and myself up immediately.

This tradition dates back to around 668AD when families started creating mottos to live by to help create happy and harmonious homes.  The tradition stuck, and still to this day, many Korean families pass these mottos on from generation to generation, encouraging moral living and good behavior.  These mottos can be as simple as one word, a phrase, or some are even contained in an entire book!  

We showed up to the class, having an idea of what we wanted written for our family, but not the exact wording.  During the class they talked about how there are many popular Confucian phrases that many Korean families use.  They shared some of these with us, and one of them was perfect for our family.  So that's the one we choose.   

Here it is written in Korean:

It says:  Heart to love each other. Life to help each other. Family that smiles and is happy.

What a perfect motto for our family!  You then could choose different flowers or designs to have added to your scroll.  Each flower or symbol has a different meaning associated with it.  We choose the flower that symbolizes hope.  

A professional calligrapher was there to create your kahoon.  

 

He was incredibly talented.  It was amazing to watch him work.  

 And here is our finished kahoon.  

We brought it home and hung it in our living room with our other family pictures and little ceramic family.

And since we were having such a Korean day, we finished it off by eating Thai food.  Go figure.  :)

At least we ate it in Korea!