조선시대 필기 야담집 속 琉球 체험과 형상화

Abstract

The previous studies on Chosun's diplomatic relationships have been severely focused on its diplomatic relationship with China and Japan. Although it is true that Chosun did not have active diplomatic relationships with Ryukyu, it maintained indirect exchange relationships with it from 1389 to 1868 and accepted information about its neighboring nations through the envoys' words and the castaways' experiences sensitively. Chosun's literary figures did not have first-hand experiences with Ryukyu, thus resorting to the Chinese books and materials about it to understand it. They also reconfirmed their knowledge acquired through such a way by meeting with Ryukyu envoys. Therefore, their views of Ryukyu contained many elements of the Chinese views and thus contained words that devalued it, which is in line with the Chosun envoys' identification of themselves as people of Small China and belief that Chosun was superior to Ryukyu during their missions in China. While their perceptions of Ryukyu were very second-hand and abstract, the castaways that had first-hand experiences with Ryukyu were highly positive about it. In the 15th century when there were active exchanges between Chosun and Ryukyu, Ryukyu received lots of economic and political benefits from Chosun. Thus when Chosun castaways reached Ryukyu, they received a big welcome from the Ryukyu people, whose extreme and kind treatments, in turn, made the Chosun castaways regard Ryukyu as an ideal land. As a result, they started to describe it as a paradise full of gold and its people as gentle. They were completely different perceptions of Ryukyu from the ones based on the Chinese books and materials, which basically saw Ryukyu as a barbarian country whose people were warlike, cruel, and cannibal. Such views of Ryukyu as were formed through the actual experiences and words of the Chosun castaways who were in the lower social class were widely spread, and Ryukyu was described as a fantastic and mysterious land and the Ryukyu people as different or true people from a new world in Chosun Pilgii and Yadam. The contemporary Chosun people's views of Ryukyu were clearly demonstrated in the Shinheebok Story of Dongyahuijip where Ryukyu was described as an ideal land and a Ryukyu princess as a fairy living in exile. As the hospitality the castaways experienced accumulated and imagination was added to it, Ryukyu became an ideal land. Those were the views of Ryukyu the contemporary Chosun people had even though they were different from real Ryukyu.