韓·中 人蔘詩의 양상과 특징

Abstract

Ginseng(人蔘) has been cultivated in Korea and was actively traded in Northeast Asia early on. Furthermore, it is a product that spread its reputation and value to Southeast Asia and Western regions. From ancient times to the present, ginseng has been recognized as the representative medicinal crop of Korea. In the old literature, it has been recorded that East Asian people tried to save Panacea ginseng from other countries. In China and Japan, ginseng has long been known as an expensive and valuable medicine. As the demand for ginseng soars in East Asia, Koreans producing ginseng had to suffer some side effects. For example, people suffered from labor pain to send out ginseng to China and meet their demand. In addition, the officials of the Joseon government struggled to prevent fake ginseng from being made by Japanese ginseng merchants. Ginseng has always been a major interest for Korea, China, and Japan, and it has become one of the major cultural products of East Asia. Ginseng has been recognized as an excellent medicine for treating patients with serious diseases and has emerged as a high-margin trading product. So it caused many unexpected problems. For example, they are wrongly taking, over-taking, or demanding too much ginseng, threatening the livelihood of the people. Such problems are documented in the Korean and Chinese Ginseng poems. In addition, the lively information about ginseng that individuals have gained from their experiences can be found in Ginseng poems. Therefore, analyzing the historical records of ginseng (history book) and individual records (ginseng poems) together is an important, necessary process to fully understand the history of the East Asian ginseng culture.