Chungin

The chungin also jungin, were the middle-class of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea. The name "chungin" literally means "middle people". This privileged class of commoners consisted of a small group of petty bureaucrats and other skilled workers whose technical and administrative skills enabled the yangban and the royal family to rule the lower classes. Chungin were the lifeblood of the Confucian agrarian bureaucracy, for whom the upper classes depended on to maintain their vice-like hold on the people. Their traditions and habits are the forerunners of the modern Korean administrative systems in both North and South Korea.

Professions and roles in the society

In dynastic Korea, particularly during the Joseon period, the chungin were lower than the yangban aristocracy but above commoners in social status. They included government-employed technical specialists (e.g. interpreters, physicians, jurists, astronomers, accountants, calligraphers, and musicians), military officers from or had marriage ties to the families producing technical specialists, hereditary government functionaries (both capital and local), and illegitimate children of aristocrats.