Professor Han

Their story

He was doing a history PhD on King Jeongjo and Hwaseong Fortress (the eighteenth-century scholar king of Korea's Joseon dynasty, and the walled fortress he built in Suwon), and got so curious about when the king held back and when he pushed ahead that he dove into saju. He isn't actually a professor, he teaches classes at a community center, but the whole neighborhood calls him Professor. Now he reads charts for exams, studying and promotions in a small office in front of the fortress's royal lodge. Whatever your worry, he drags it back to King Jeongjo, and somehow it still ends in a clear one-line answer. His favorite story: Jeongjo picked bright young officials under thirty-seven, sent them back to school, and set their exams himself.