Statue of King Sejong (Gwanghwamun)
The statue of King Sejong was dedicated on 9 October 2009, in a ceremony attended by attended by President Lee Myung-bak and other Korean government official, on a Hangul Day in celebration of the 563rd anniversary of the invention of the Korean alphabet by King Sejong, two months after the Gwanghwamun Plaza opening. The golden statue is 6.2 meters high (another source gives the statue height as 9.5 meters and yet another, 6.7 meters) and weights 20 tons. The king has one hand raised and another placed on a book. Sides of the statue display all of the hangul alphabet characters. In front of the statue there are small models of a celestial globe, a rain gauge, and a sundial, the invention of which is also traditionally attributed to King Sejong in Korea. While King Sejong is best remembered for his invention of hangul, he is also considered to have been involved in promotion of agriculture, literature, science and technology, as well as Confucian philosophy, in Korea.
Memoirs of Lady Hyegyeong
By the time Lady Hyegyong had begun writing in the late 1700s, the invention of hangul had already become the voice of female narratives, which began to appear and allowed female narratives to become more and more plentiful. Haboush determines this increase to be correlated with the decrease of yangban women's inheritance rights. As family structures began to change, women turned to the pen “to bear public witness to history” and express for themselves how customs and family structures were changing at the time. Similarly, by writing her own autobiographical memoirs, Lady Hyegyong was able to express for herself insights into life at the Joseon Court during an extraordinary time.