[KS] cultural object circulation in the late Choson Dynasty query (Jamie Jungmin Yoo)

Jamie Jungmin Yoo yoo at fas.harvard.edu
Wed Oct 27 22:35:02 EDT 2010


Dear Professor Kornicki,

The "book circulation/transmission in Korea"issue will be a part of my 
dissertation. Currently I'm working on other chapters and will be able 
to conduct in-depth research on this "transmission"topic hopefully in 
spring --next semester, but I'd like to share my preliminary research 
results and ideas. I'll appreciate any comments and suggestions for my 
future research.

For the topography for the "information flow"in terms of book 
transmission in traditional Korea, there will be three major factors we 
can consider: (1) Official/private book purchase in Beijing. The major 
actors were "interpreters (Yo(kkwan??)", (2) circulations through the 
"book brokers (ch'aek-k'wae ??)"in Korea, (3) hand copied manuscripts 
and private exchanges.

** The role of the "book brokers (ch'aek-k'wae ??)"are really 
interesting. They were sort of peddlers, who purchased books at half 
price here and resold them at full price there. Sometimes they served as 
interpreters as well --they bought books in Beijingand resold them in 
Korea. There were some ruined peers --yangbans literati among the book 
brokers.

We can find many records about book brokers from various sources, such 
as Kim Man-chung? ??, Yu Hu(i-ch'un ???, Chu(ngbo-munho(nbigo ??????, 
sillok ??, etc. For example, according to Yo(ngjosillok ????, in the 
18^th C, there were more than 100 book brokers in Korea.

Cho Sinson ??? was a well known book broker. Cho(ng Yak-yong? ??left 
detailed notes about him --he was awell-informedmanwithbroadvision, etc.

** As for the book "markets"-- it is said that the book stores (so(sa 
??) were established in around 1518, but it looks like that their roles 
and functions were very limited. They were mostly run/controlled by the 
government. Even in the 18^th C, in his Puk'agu(i???, Pak Che-ka ??? 
said that he's observed that in Qing book business through book stores 
was really booming, and then recalled that Choson still had book 
brokers, which were less effective in information circulation.

Another interesting record drew my attention was that Hu(myong ?? by Yu 
Manju ??? in the late 18^th C. He requested that a book broker purchase 
some particular books in Beijing. This proves that the book brokers were 
one of the important information sources.

As far as I know, there is no book dealing with this topic in English. 
In Korea, some scholars have written about circulations of vernacular 
short-stories, mostly in late Choson. Also some paid attention to this 
issue in the context of late Choson cultural trend...Perhaps we will be 
able to get more information from Sillok, private collections, etc.

Hope this was helpful. Please feel free to let me know if there is 
anything I can help with. Thanks a lot :-)


Best Wishes,
Jamie Jungmin Yoo

Ph.D. candidate in Korean literature
HarvardUniversity

------
From: Peter Kornicki <pk104 at cam.ac.uk> <mailto:pk104 at cam.ac.uk>
Date: 10 October 201012:53:18 GMT+01:00
To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws <mailto:koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Subject: Book circulation in the Choson dynasty

The answers to the query about Koryo celadon prompt me to piggy-back a 
question of my own onto the original one. Is there any evidence for any 
sort of 'market' for books, new or old, in the Choson dynasty? There is 
much information about the purchase of books by Koreans in Chinaand 
Japan, but what about the possibilities for book-purchase within 
Koreaitself?

Peter Kornicki
RobinsonCollege, Cambridge=



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