Deep Rooted Tree (Tree with deep root) - Lesson learned

What it is??  It's the tittle of a Korean Drama I'm currently watching on Dramacrazy.net. The first thing that interest me is it's historical value - a story about King Sejong (Lee Do), the king of Joseon who revolutionised writing for Korean - he introduce the Korean script that is simple and easy to be learnt. His purpose was to ensure that all his subjects could read and write. It happened that before this new script, Joseon was using the Mandarin script which had thousands of characters to remember. The new script introduced 28 alphabets that could be used to write/read any sound produced in Joseon (painstakingly, the king and his loyal men catalogue all the sounds that people of Joseon made to pronounce possibly all the nouns, verbs, etc)  Challenging you say? Throw into the plot a group of dissatisfied noblemen and an underground group called "hidden root" or the "Mil-bon" who wanted to dethrone the King. Thus, the development works for the new script had to be done in secrecy. Added to the plot another character who had lived with one purpose - Kill the King to revenge for the death of his father.  A lot of twists and turns, things are not as it seems and prejudgement will only frustrate you as the truth being revealed. Before I reveal the whole story and robbed you of the suspense and enjoyment to watch the series (Watched all 24 episode on Dramacrazy.net) let me stop here and focus on the learning. Yes, you could learn one or two lessons from this addictive series....... Comeback to this page later as I will share some of the lessons I learnt from the series.

Lesson 1: Literacy must be made simple to ensure education for all
The king knew that education is the key to the kingdom's prosperity. Lee Do was a learned person himself. His father laughed at his idea of establishing the research institute saying that he must be out of his mind thinking that he could rule the kingdom with words. As the story unfold, he did rule his kingdom successfully via education. He knew literacy is the key to provide access to knowledge, hence the need to develop a simple script to enable his subjects to understand (He discovered that they were illiterate. Then he discovered the reason was the script they used then was complex - thousands of characters to learn and remember). This confirmed my notion that to facilitate teaching and learning knowledge, we need to use language that both teacher and student understand. Thus, mastery of language is important BUT how to ensure students could master the language. It must be captured in simple scripts...in the case of Joseon, the scripts developed by Lee Do and his "accomplice" can be used to represent any sound made in Joseon. Imagine how simple it is if we could spell the way we pronounce and then reproduce the pronunciation by reading.  I guess that's why Americans decided to spell Color instead of Colour (silent U) or Center instead of Centre (how to pronounce TRE?...sound like "tree" and it will be "Sen..tree" instead of "Sen..ter"). Morale of the story... learn to read and write before you learn anything else.

Lesson 2: Power of one - one person can change history
Passion of one person is all needed to change history. In Deep rooted tree, Lee Do was the power of one. Before that, his father had tried to centralize all power to one (himself) by eliminating all his opponents (sound familiar?). The concept or misconception about power centralization is that if you want to change things, you need all the power. On the contrary, the power of one concept is that one person could change things by focusing on his circle of influence. Lee Do knew that the Noblemen and Scholars would reject the idea of changing the way people write (Who like change anyway?). To overcome this challenge and avoid resistance at the early part of his project, Sejong decided to go undercover....start the groundwork secretly with a few trusted people. Then as a result of curiosity, two young scholars managed to "forced" the King to reveal the secret project to them. After the revelation, the two young scholars were convinced the the King is doing the right thing, thus they joined the project to help perfected the research work. At this point, you see how the power of one works. From the passion of one person, it became shared vision. Morale of the story...you want change, start with yourself.

Lesson 3: Resistance - many will stop the one from changing history
It is obvious that the King's intention was resisted by the Bureaucrats (Noblemen and Scholars). They have their own reasons for resisting, just to be fair. Once the new script is introduced, they would lost the power of knowledge. All the while, the peasants and slaves had been "cheated" just because they could not read. For the Scholars, they are just too familiar with the existing language of knowledge that introducing a new official script would mean they have to unlearn and relearn....heck, who would want to take the trouble to translate or re-script the manuscripts into the new script? You may find some parallel to the current PPSMI issue here but I do not intend to talk about it. Morale of the story, get an education as it is power. But first, you need to master the language of knowledge.

Lesson 4: Don't prejudged - things may not be as it seems
In the beginning we would have thought that Lee Do would make a good King. He seems "weak" on the outside. As the story continues, his true character emerged. He was actually strong in the inside. There's a lion-heart in him. Similarly with Ddol Bok (goes by the name Kang Chae Yoon as adult). He seemed determined to kill the King....until he learned new facts about his old flame Dam (goes by the name So Yi as adult) and his father's will (he lost it when he was a child) There's a soft-spot in his heart. Some of the Noblemen seems to be loyalist but turn out to be part of the Hidden Roots. What about Ga Ri On (the butcher)....who would have thought he is the Root. Heck I thought he was a good guy because as a youngster he seemed to be an Idealist, thus his character could have developed as a strong supporter to King Sejong's vision (I still have 6 episodes to go....may there is another twist. Who knows). Morale of the story: Don't judge a book by its cover (King Sejong). Get more facts before you judge (Ddol Bok).

Lesson 5: You are not alone
King Sejong had a vision. His vision was that one day, all his subject can read and write (literacy). The times where there were social class and literacy & education belongs to the upper class, this vision is not easily accepted by society. Lee Do seemed alone (?) Well, he started his project will his loyal palace maids and protected by his loyal warrior/bodyguard Mhul Yool. Doubt if these people helped him because they shared the same vision but they helped him anyway because they either believed in him or just plainly following orders. Relating to the power of one, with strong determination and persistence added to hard-work never give up attitude, his vision soon became shared vision.  First, with the two young scholars. Then as the story progressed, we learned that one of his palace maid admitted that she shared the same vision of having a simple script that everyone can learn to read and write. Later, Chae Yoon also supported the vision. Morale of the story: Have a dream, share it as shared vision is really dreams shared by many.

Lesson 6: Power of Shared Vision
The power of shared vision can be seen strongly when King Sejong revealed his project to the two young scholars. Once the two bought into the idea of having a simple script for Joseon, they willingly volunteer to be part of the project. Also when Chae Yoon (Ddol Bok) understand the vision, he became protector of the vision. In the two instances, the reason to buy into the idea were different. To the two young scholars, the vision appealed to their academic mind, while to Chae Yoon it appeal to his own experience....if only he could read, his father could have been saved.  Morale of the story: a vision became shared vision when it appeals to others.

Lesson 7: Love conquers all
Kang Chae Yoon was in love with Soo Yi that he is willing to to go the extra mile to live happily ever after with her. He went through lowest point of his life in the name of love. In the end, he died because of his love the love of his life.

Lesson 8 (the biggest lesson of all): Live for a purpose

King Sejong (Lee Do) had devoted his life to realize his vision of a sustainable and prosperous Joseon. Despite the resistance to his Korean Script the King pushes on determined to see the new script communicated and promulgated. He lost 3 scholars in the beginning but the event was a blessing. He became more determined. Lost of his son did not stop him. He had Soo Yi (Dham), Kang Chae Yoon, and Moo Hyul, along with other trusted group of aides - Noblemen, Scholars, Servants alike had supported his cause though for their own reasons. The saddest part of the story came in the end when his most trusted people (Soo Yi, Chae Yoon, and Moo Hyul) died in the course of helping the King live for his purpose. Their death were not in vain as they had lived a life for a purpose too.