④ Korean Money and the 100-Won Admiral Yi

In the Land of Atatürk

When I was head of our office in Turkey, I handled Turkish lira every day.

From the 5-kuruş coin to the highest note, 200 lira, Turkish money bears, without exception, the face of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It was striking that the one man who founded modern Turkey filled the entire currency, from small change to large notes. But what surprised me more was the depth of respect the Turkish people pay him.

That depth of respect can only be understood once you know the history: at the moment of life or death when the Ottoman Empire collapsed and Turkey could have fallen into a colony of the Western powers, Atatürk preserved Turkey as an independent nation. If you do not know that moment when the country could have perished, and the man who prevented it, the respect Turks pay him today will only look strange. Countries that barely protected themselves from powerful nations, or that newly won their independence, often put the heroes who saved them on their money to commemorate them.

Korea fought for its independence even longer. Have you ever thought about which figures Korea draws on its money to remember its past?

Faced with this question, the first thing that comes to my mind is the face of Admiral Yi Sun-sin — the commander who saved Joseon at sea during the Imjin War — engraved on the 100-won coin.

Admiral Yi Was Originally on a Banknote

From 1973 to 1982, Admiral Yi was the figure on the 500-won note. On its front, his portrait was proudly printed together with a turtle ship.

There is a famous anecdote about this note. It is said that when Chung Ju-yung, the founder of Hyundai, went to Britain to raise funds to build a shipyard, he held out this very note with Admiral Yi and the turtle ship to an official of Barclays Bank and won the loan by persuading him: "Our people built ironclad ships three hundred years before Britain." There was a moment, then, when Admiral Yi's face was actually used to build up the nation's industry.

But in 1982, when the 500-won note was replaced by a coin, Admiral Yi disappeared completely from Korean banknotes and remained only on the 100-won coin, which was already in circulation.

The Pro-Japanese Controversy, and an Admiral Who Looks Like a Civil Official

What is more, the face of Admiral Yi used on the 100-won coin is itself a subject of controversy.

Was Admiral Yi a civil official?

This face is based on the standard portrait painted by the artist Jang Woo-sung. It is absurd enough that Jang Woo-sung is listed in the Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators, but it is equally absurd that the face looks not like a military officer but like a civil official — a scholar-bureaucrat of the kind Joseon ranked above its soldiers.

Can you believe that the figure on today's 100-won coin is Admiral Yi?

The Figures on Korean Money

Now let us talk a little more about the figures on our money.

50,000 won: Shin Saimdang

10,000 won: King Sejong the Great

5,000 won: Yulgok Yi I

1,000 won: Toegye Yi Hwang

100 won (coin): Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin

Shin Saimdang, a Joseon painter and calligrapher, is on the highest note, and her son Yulgok Yi I, a Confucian scholar, is on the 5,000-won note.

Both were fine scholars and artists. But I want to ask.

Did either of them ever risk their life to protect something at a moment when the nation's survival was at stake? Can we say that what we, their descendants, should learn from them is more urgent or more valuable than what we should learn from Kim Gu, An Jung-geun, and Yun Bong-gil — patriots who risked their lives for independence when the country had fallen into a colony?

What Other Countries That Fought for Independence Did

Vietnam, which like us has a history of long colonial rule and a hard war for independence, put the portrait of Ho Chi Minh, who led its independence movement, on all eleven of its banknotes.

I do not like the practice of covering a country's money with one person's face. But if you know a country's history, you can tell what its money is saying.

When countries like Turkey and Vietnam — which went through moments when the nation could have collapsed, or which fought wars of independence from colonial rule and barely rose again as new independent states — cover their money with one person's face, it can even touch the heart.

Because it can be seen as a sign of deep gratitude that only those who have lost their country know: "In the end, it was this man who brought us back to life."

American money is made up of a variety of presidents and founding figures, so it is not covered with one person. Even so, I think that putting Washington, the commander-in-chief who led the War of Independence, on the one-dollar bill that people hold in their hands every day best shows respect for the man who protected the nation, and the nation's identity.

Admiral Yi, Disguised as a Civil Official on the 100-Won Coin

In our case, what respect and gratitude can we offer the figures on our money?

Apart from King Sejong, I cannot think of any respect or gratitude I could offer the people on our money.

Even in the case of Admiral Yi, it is the same.

As I said earlier, the face on the 100-won coin only looks like a civil official; at a glance, it is hard even to recognize it as Admiral Yi. If anyone insists that the figure on this coin is unmistakably Admiral Yi, I would ask them in return whether they have ever really looked closely at that face.

And our history is not only the history of Joseon; it is a long history going back to Gojoseon, Korea's first kingdom. Why, then, are none of the commanders like Eulji Mundeok and Yeon Gaesomun of Goguryeo, or Jang Bogo of Silla, nor any figures from Goryeo, on our money?

I truly cannot help asking who chose the figures on our money, and by what standard.

Amid such questions, looking at Admiral Yi engraved on the 100-won coin today, I even came to think this.

Was it really someone's mistake, or chance, that Admiral Yi was engraved on the 100-won coin disguised as a civil official, to be spent as pocket change? If there was an intention, what intention was hidden there?

I cannot help asking.

👉 Next post: ⑤ Jangbuga: The Song of a True Man

— Momcheolhak