minjung

From Korean 민중 (minjung) (民衆), from Middle Chinese 民眾 (mjin-t͡ʃjùwnɡ, “common people, the masses”) (compare Mandarin 民众 (mínzhòng)), from Old Chinese 民 (ming, “people”) + *眾 (tung-s, “numerous”).

minjung pl (plural only)

1. (politics, theology) In Korea, ordinary men and women considered as a group or movement; ‘the people’.
   • 1996, Sang Taek Lee, Religion and Social Formation in Korea, page 171:

     The minjung have learned to dream of a world from which oppression, conflict and suffering have been removed; a world where they are no longer the ruled, but the rulers of their own lives and destinies, and the subjects of their own history.

   • 2008, Sebastian CH Kim, Christian Theology in Asia, page 140:

     Therefore the theologians' main concern was not dealing with individual poor people but rather to do with social process and the system which prevents the minjung from coming out of their misery.

   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, page 978:

     Jesus was minjung and the friend of the minjung, teaching forgiveness and love of enemies, but Moses was also minjung, political leader of his people against oppression.