16 To 19 Century Korea Cultural Exchange Research

This dissertation is the monograph regarding the Sino-Korean cultural exchanges from the 16^th century to the beginning of the 19^th century. The relationship between China and Korea in Ming and Qing dynasties had been developed to typically tributary, the Korean government then regularly sent their diplomatic envoys to Beijing every year. In Choson dynasty (1392-1910), the Korean government contacted foreign nations primarily through those tributary officials to China, whose major tasks were maintaining relations with China and some might be for private affairs, such as searching and buying books on the way to the Capital, communicating with the Chinese scholars and Western missionaries, etc. In a word, the envoys played an important role not just in the political and economic sections, but also in the cultural exchange section between China and Korea in Ming and Qing dynasties. Based on this point of view, the dissertation focuses on the envoys' cultural activities, and so, the development of Sino-Korean cultural exchanges shows up.Cultural activities of those Korean tributary officials in Beijing, and anywhere else in China were mostly recorded in their private archives about their journeys in China and around 500 books describing their journeys have been preserved and was entitled Yeon Heng Rok in general. The manuscripts that were scattered before are the most important materials for my research. Fortunately in 2001, more than 360 Yeon Heng Rok books mostly dating back from 16^th to 19^th century were compiled in A Collection of Travel Records Yeon Heng Rok (total in100 volumes), and were published in Korea. Mainly based on those first hand materials, I analyzed the changes of the Sino-Korean cultural relationship from Ming Dynasty to Qing dynasty and described the situation of Sino-Korean cultural exchanges. My purpose is to provide the cultural approach to understand Sino-Korean tributary relations in Ming and Qing dynasties, and also to explore the status and influences of the Chinese culture in the Confucian international system in East Asia in Ming and Qing dynasties.The main content of the paper composes of five parts:Chapter one makes a concrete description of the Korean tribute officials to the Ming and Qing courts: their types, functions, how they were composed, where they went, what they did in Beijing, and frequencies. Then it reviews the collection and the publication of Yeon Heng Rok. As the historical data, Yeon Heng Rok had been paid attention to from the 1960s, and its value for the academic research has also been analyzed here.Chapter two discusses how the envoys communicated with the Chinese scholars from 16^th to the biginning of 19^th century and what they had achieved. As using the same Chinese character, scholars between the two nations often communicated with each other in poems; they also always exchanged opinions by written conversation. From Ming Dynasty to Qing dynasty, the communicating methods and the topics had some changes, which revealed their cultural mentalities and the different attitudes towards the Ming and Qing dynasties.