Instead of signing their names, Koreans stamp important documents with their own personal name chops (dojong)!
I love this about Korea, and have actually had 2 made for myself! The pink one was made by a machine, and the black one was actually tediously hand carved by a 70 something year old Korean man in Gukje market!
Nowadays the practice of stamping is being replaced by actual signatures... but when I go to the bank, I always have my stamp kit in hand!
Traditionally, the name stamps used the Chinese characters (Hanja) of the person's name, but Korean characters (Hangul) have become more common now.
This is the stamp that was made by a machine. It says "Jill Anderson" (Or, actually, phonetically, it actually says: Jeel Un duh sun - close enough!)
... and this is the hand carved one! It just says "Anderson" (En Dul Son) haha
You can actually order your own personal Korean name stamp, on-line, from this online Gift Shop, or you can tell me you want one, and I'll have one made here for 1/5 of the price! They're awesome, and now that I found the right kind of stamp pad for it, for the equivalent of 50 cents, I'm gonna start stamping everything! :)
