What does «han» mean in Spanish?
- A concept from Korean culture used to describe a feeling of pain and oppression innate to the Korean people. The idea of han and its association with Korean identity dates back to the Japanese occupation of Korea and owes its origin to colonial stereotypes and the Japanese critic and philosopher Sōetsu Yanagi, who characterized Korean art and culture as "painful," being criticized in both Korea and Japan for his "shallow" and "prejudiced" judgment. Han was adopted as an intrinsically Korean characteristic during the 20th century, as an effect of its propagation by scholars, the circumstances of modern Korean history, and the propaganda of ethno-national solidarity through a sense of "shared suffering."