During my research trip to South Korea this summer, I had the chance to meet with a major Korean auction house proprietor. During our discussion he talked about how his and other businesses active in the East Asian secondary coin market have been trying to get official currency authorities such as the Bank of China and the Bank of Korea (BOK) to issue numismatic pieces of "popular" themes, and in a timely manner, so that the coins and medals will sell while the event or person in the design is still a fresh news story. The BOK has made some changes in this regard, especially after the Kim Yuna coin controversy. The Kim Yuna coin controversy happened when private marketers got the tiny British-commonwealth island of Tuvalu (population: 11,000 people) to authorize the minting of a coin commemorating Kim Yuna, since the BOK was not exactly responsive to design ideas arising from current popular culture. Who is Kim Yuna? She's a figure skater who won the gold medal for South Korea in the 2010 Winter Olympics. This was a bigger deal in Korea than you can image, as South Korea has never won the gold in figure skating, and especially since she won it over her Japanese competitors, who took the silver and bronze. As you can imagine, she became the perfect subject for such a design. When the Tuvalu coin was featured in the Korean press, some in the Korean public were angry that the Queen of England was on the back of the coin commemorating Kim Yuna, and wondered why the BOK didn't issue the coin instead. This was the beginning of certain changes in thinking at BOK and the Korean Ministry of Finance. They got to work and issued a Kim Yuna medal in 2014. And rumor has it that the Korean MOF and BOK will be much more responsive, in an open and timely manner, to including certain current popular themes in their currency designs. I like how the reverse design of the Korean medal mimics the bust of the Queen on the Tuvalu coin! They even refer to Kim Yuna in the legends on the obverse as a "Queen." The problem for the Korean authorities now is that some of these "popular" themes in Korean society are also points of diplomatic contention with neighboring countries. Take the current case of the "Dokdo Island" coin that some in the Korean public are now demanding. Dokdo, (a.k.a. "Liancourt Rocks") is an island that is closer to Korea than Japan and is visible from Korean land, but is claimed by both countries. Read more, here: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz...zaWTaoMPjMTf7lhjTMFqwxjRUlLNGlz-luM7UMlbiRTJ8
Physics-fan3.14: It is customary in Asian countries i.e. China, Taiwan and Korea to list family name first then given name. The only difference is Japan which lists given name then last name. However to add to the confusion, Japanese name/business cards (meishi) usually list family name first. Mlov43 is following convention.
In China, (probably Korea as well) the last name is usually first in order. For example, we would say John Doe while in Asia they would say Doe John
Another fun fact, in Korea "Kim" is almost never a first name, unlike America where Kim (Kimberly) is a relatively common first name
It is also the custom in Hungary, the most Asiatic place in Europe, to put the family name first and the given name second. Note, also, that in the news about North Korea, the news media call the current leader Kim Jong Un, as his father was called Kim Jong Il, and the eldest was Kim Il Sung. Kim is the family name. Mao Zedong and (current president) Xi Jinping are other examples: Mao and Xi are the family names. We do not invert them in the Western news media.
Either way is fine: Eastern rendering has family name first and Western rendering has family name last.
