On The Cultural Explanation Of "Park Ji-Won's Jehol Diary"

During the time that Park Ji-won lived and Jehol Diary was written, Korean society is being transferred from feudalism to modernism and long dominantstatus of Neo-Confucianism was being questioned. It is the turn of history and the collision of new and old thoughts. Such special historical backgrounds—conversion of thinking and philosophy, change of social structure, gap between original opinion to China ruled by Qing and personal experience of traveling to China, caused Park Ji-won's contradict attitudes which are directly reflected in his writing of Jehol Diary.Jehol Diary was written in the special period and based on Piao's special experience and thought course. Jehol Diary has very important values from the perspective of social effects and Piao's individual literature activities. With regard to the study of Park Ji-won and his writings (including Jehol Diary), there are affluent results achieved by academic community at home and abroad. Under such context, this author still selected Park Ji-won and Jehol Diary as research subject, the main purpose is not only re-evaluating its literature value, but also exploring deeply and systematically its inner cultural values and its significances on that time, and even enriching its enlightenment values and significances on the turn of the history.In Chapter one, this author tries to do such work as following: first, correctly decipher Park Ji-won's inner spiritual world; second, evaluate cultural significance carried in Jehol Diary run through by Liyonghousheng(利用厚生), use natural resources and technology effectively so that people may enjoy relative abundant material life) from the perspective of subjective and history.Chapter two introduces the background of Jehol Diary. Any great thoughtor writing work must be born by the author's life experience, thought course, living environment and cultural background. Park Ji-won was born of special noble family in the special time and grew up under special education. He has great critical consciousness of mainstream culture and is marginally situated in the aspect of thinking and philosophy value pursuing. Standing at the front of his time, Piao absorbs developed scientific achievements, literature theories(Modernism literature), trends of cultural thoughts (Pragmatism), review of traditional thinking and philosophy and order conception (Huayi Viewpoints, Concerning the Han People and Minorities) , advocates actively Northern Learning, gives the direction to criticize traditional thinking and order and reconstruct new social order.Chapter three states the content and structure of Jehol Diary. Comparing with other Yanxinglu (Koreans' travelogue in Qing China) , Jehol Diary is unique. Firstly, the commonalty status of Park Ji-won is different from other authors, which makes his writing few of official color; secondly, Park Ji-won spends all of four years in writing Jehol Diary which covers Chinese political, economic and cultural centers then(including Shengjing, Beijing and Jeho);thirdly, the content is comprehensive and the writing style is various. By this writing, we can learn various aspects of Chinese society, feel the author's inner minds of potential perils, and also enjoy the author's particular writing style.Chapter four explains the relations between Jehol Diary and Northern Learning. As a pragmatist, Park Ji-won attends to Liyonghousheng and turns special measures to Northern Learning. Northern Learning proposed by Park Ji-won is based on his opinion of Qing Dynasty then. Park Ji-won breaks through traditional Huayi Viewpoints, calling for studying Qing's advanced cultural systems by the way of Daoqifenli(道器分离). Park Ji-won expresses the meaning of Northern Learning in Jehol Diary, that is, anything that is beneficial to country and people should be studied and introduced.Chapter five reveals foreign culture in Jehol Diary. Laying aside the field of encyclopedia-like knowledge covered in Jehol Diary and explore in depth the inner logical clue, we can find that Liyonghousheng is the mainline of the writing which runs through not only the object culture closely related to the populace daily life but also cultural dialogues between two cultures all the ways. If we organize foreign cultures reflected in Jehol Diary along Liyonghousheng, various cultures like object culture, folklore culture and art culture can be clearly grasped. Chapter six is related to cultural perspective of Huchi (《虎叱》)and Xushengzhuan (《许生传》) . It is obvious that various obstructed forces must be cleared off if the author's opinion of practicing Northern Learning and absorbingQing Chinese advanced object and culture. The obstructed forces in this placeincludes those military and gentry classes claiming for admiring Ming and refuting Qing and feudalism ruling order that restrain people's thinking. By criticizing and repudiating traditional mainstream values and ideas and the existing systems, the author portrays a new intellectual image and the perfect society onan imaginary island.Chapter seven is equal to the conclusion. For the Korean feudalism Society at the end of the eighteenth century, Northern Learning is no doubt a desire for the advanced culture. However, there is a contrast between reality and ideality. The relations between china and Korea which is also stated as center and edge relations have a directly influence on the deep heart of Korean literati. For Park Ji-won, the introduction of Qing's advanced culture is limited to Liyonghousheng and turns realizing Zhengde(正德) to New Confucianism.This is just the fission of instrumental rationality and value rationality Park Ji-won is facing, which finally moulds Park Ji-won's contradiction.On the previous research findings, this dissertation tries to do some creative work as followings: firstly, decipher subjectively the Qing's image in the eyeof Park Ji-won; secondly, impartially reveal cultural significance of Jehol Diary; thirdly, explore deep cultural factors which formed Park Ji-won's fission of personality.