Question 070: Blue cottage

Could you please tell me what is or what was the blue cottage?

Reply

General Choi Hong-hi is considered by some as the founder of Taekwondo. As a young man, he trained to be a calligrapher and he was supposedly given the penname Chang-hon or "blue cottage" by his calligraphy teacher and Taekkyon master, Han Il Dong. Later in life, after Choi himself became a martial arts master, he used Chang-hon as the name for the pattern set he developed for Taekwondo. I have not found any explanation as to why Choi’s calligraphy teacher selected Chang-hon as a penname for him.