Pukhak as a Learning of Travelers: Koreans’ Journey to Beijing and the New Cultural Trends in Late Chosŏn Period

• In Event: Science and Empire in East Asia: Qing Imperial Order and the Spatial Dynamics of Knowledge

Abstract

This paper addresses the “spatial dynamics of knowledge in the Qing imperial order,” from the standpoint of Koreans’ travel to the Qing metropolis, examining the relationship between their practices of travelling and the new cultural trends in late Chosŏn Korea. The case in point is the “Northern Learning” (Pukhak) movement, a prominent reformist trend, proposed in the late eighteenth century by a small group of Seoul literati who aimed to reform Korean society by adopting high Qing culture. As the most radical expression of the trend, Pak Chega’s Proposal for Northern Learning (Pukhak ŭi), will be analyzed, particularly the ways in which Pak used the travel experience of himself and his colleagues, in presenting and justifying a seemingly idiosyncratic agenda, such as the importation of advanced technology from the Qing and the opening of free commercial trade with Qing. This paper thus proposes to view the Northern Learning first and foremost as a learning of travelers. It was a cultural agenda of a small group of literati, who consciously positioned themselves as enlightened travelers, and based the epistemic credibility and cultural appeal of their program primarily on the exclusiveness of their own travel experience. This privileged experience was, they boasted, largely inaccessible and thus incomprehensible to most of the contemporary Korean literati.

Author

• Jongtae Lim, Seoul National University