Yes, the use of Korean characters in history began in the Ming Dynasty, but at that time the official characters were still Chinese characters. Therefore, educated people are required to write Chinese characters. Even if you have a little culture, you should write Korean Chinese characters. Korean is phonetic, while Chinese characters are ideographic. If Chinese characters are not used, many words will be misunderstood. So until now, Koreans are still learning and using Chinese characters. However, the use of Chinese characters was abolished in the 1970s when park chung-hee was in power. At that time, so many young people, that is, people in their forties and fifties now, didn't know Chinese characters.