朝鮮知識人がみた ‘中国’- 燕行使 『燕行録』を題材に -

Abstract

We cannot see our faces without a medium such as a mirror. This means that we become aware of ourselves firstly through others. Here, orientalism is a good example of the way of European understanding of the ‘Orient’. On the other hand, ‘Sino-centralism’(Chines Order) ruled the Asian dynasty in the modern age. When the Ch’ing dynasty was replaced with the Ming dynasty, to the intellectuals of the Joseon dynasty, it means the ‘Barbarians’ had conquered the ‘Chinese Order’. With this turning-point, they realized their role as the protectors of ‘Chinese Order’ in placed of the Ming dynasty. This self-realization is continuously ascertained and reconstructed through the discovery of ‘others’. The “Yoelha Ilgi” and “Yoenhang Ilgi” are very famous records of travel to China in the Joseon dynasty. The former writer Park Jiwon is known well as a realist and many studies put the focus on painting him as the representative of realism. Away from this point, this article wants to point out the Park Jiwon discovered himself through the process of realizing others. In his discovery of China a dynamism between knowing and seeing in concealed. Observing ‘Others’ triggered the effect to objectify as an image observing himself as a being who is observed back. This dynamism played a certain role in allowing the possibility of self-criticism among the intellectuals of the Joseon dynasty.