On Reading Choi Pu's Pyohaerok

주제논문발표자: J. Meskill, 전 Columbia대 교수 발표일자: 1995. 6.22. 학술대회명: 최부표해록연구 국제학술좌담회 회의장소: 중국사회과학원 It is pleasure to attend this celebration of the study of Choi Pu's Pyohaerok. The conference illustrates the advances that have been made in the study of the book since I read it more than thirty years ago. More generally, to one who has studied East Asia from afar, the conference illustrates the advances that have been made in the past thirty years in knowledge of the Ming dynasty of China and the Yi dynasty of Korea. In the days when I was a student in New York, for instance, no one had yet written an adequate history of Korea in English. At my university, Columbia University, no one taught Korean history and culture. The Pyohaerok was almost unknown. There was no full copy of it in the Unites States. I first learned about it when I went to Kyoto to further my studies and the late Professor Ichisada Miyazaki introduced me to it. The manuscript copy that he had photographed for me was the first to be brought to my country. In those days, too, Americans had hardly begun seriously to study of the Ming period of China. There was no modern printed edition of the Ming shih-lu. Only in the Library of Congrss in Washington was there a photographed copy of version in the National Library in Peking. A widely-used text on the history of China, which was 245 pages along, gave only twenty-five pages to the Ming period. That under these circumstances a young student should attempt to study Pyohaerok seems to me now, I must confess, proof of the recklessness of youth. I knew little about Korean history. Of my knowledge of Chinese, the professor who guided me, Professor Chichen Wang, once thought to compliment me on my ability to understand the "unusual Chinese" of Pyohaerok. I did not dare to admit that I could not tell the difference between "unusual Chinese" and "usual Chinese." Yet even to one with so little experience and training, it was evident that in the future Pyohaerok could contribute to the understanding of historical issues. Though written in formal Chinese, it was meant to be a realistic record, free of embellishment, of actual events and dialog. First of all, the book says much about the author himself. So courageous in the face of hardship and so alert to the importance of his experiences, was Choi Pu in some way characteristic of a type of Korean scholar and official?  He seemed to combine a doctrinaire Confucianism with an interest in practical, everyday affairs. He seemed to appreciate the cultural internationalism of the East Asian world and at the same time to reveal a nationalistic independence regarding matters of Korean wealth and power. The self-portrait he has given us may improve our appreciation of Korean culture and politics. In addition, if modern scholarship has discovered him recorded in Chinese sources, it would be interesting to know what impression he made on the Chinese. The book also gives us a special view of China, that of an interested and learned foreigner. Clinical psychology holds the principle that the eye sees first and foremost what is new. Choi Pu, though well-read in the Chinese literary tradition, saw much that was new. Much of what he noted can be useful in the modern study of Ming culture and government. For example, he finds clearly apparent the differences between the South and the North-the South prosperous and cultivated, the North poor and coarse. His observations, made a century after the founding of the dynasty, may contribute to eval‎uating the causes of such a difference. Was it a matter of the effects of foreign rule, or was it a long-term and fundamental disparity of resources? In observing that literacy was widespread in the South and not in the North, he may also have contributed to an explanation of the disparity in the results of the civil service examination system, in which Southeners regularly had greater success than Northerners. His detailed record of administrative methods and practices may contribute to a clearer understanding of ordinary procedures of the time. For example, from his account of the methods of interrogation may come a better understanding of what was accepted as evidence, and from what Chinese officials told him we may learn more about how documents were transmitted, and to what degree formal regulations were observed or ignored. He also gives us a few details concerning the Chinese conduct of foreign relations. Once he is accepted as a Korean scholar and official, for example, although he has no formal standing in China, he is treated generously. He suggests that Chinese officials have little knowledge of Korean relations with countries other than China. He finds Korean interpreters in the capital, suggesting both the extent and limits of interest in Korea. With such concrete details, Pyohaerok offers valuable information to competent scholars. It gives me great pleasure to see scholars giving to the book the attention it deserves. I am honored to join the company of those who celebrate its contribution to knowledge.