Forest Recreation Culture of 18Th Century Joseon Intellectuals - Focused on the Korean Translation of Yusangi

J. People Plants Environ. Vol. 20 No. 3: 261-270, June 2017 ISSN 2508-7673(Print) https://doi.org/10.11628/ksppe.2017.20.3.261 ISSN 2508-7681(Online) Forest Recreation Culture of 18th Century Joseon Intellectuals - Focused on the Korean Translation of Yusangi - 1 2 Woo-Yeol Kim and Bong-Ju Park * 1 Department of Forest Therapy, Graduate School, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, South Korea 2 Department of Horticultural Science, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, South Korea Abstract This study examines the forest recreation culture of Joseon intellectuals through the Yusangi (遊山記; literary works on sightseeing along the forest) translated by the Korea National Arboretum among Yusangi written in the 18th century. This study aimed to identify the forest recreation culture of the Joseon period and to explore success factors of the modern forest culture by understanding how the intellectuals saw, felt and responded to the nature by analyzing the content of Korean translation of Yusangi. The contents of the 18th century Yusangi was analyzed according to the 5W1H principle and its meanings were assumed. Specifically, this study analyzed time and reason of visit to nature, activities, their emotional feelings and changes in rational thinking of the people who recorded the Yusangi. Major findings were as follows. Most of the writers of Yusangi were intellectuals who were the ruling classes of the time. The places visited included not only the famous mountain of the whole country but also the local areas where they resided and the areas where they worked as officials. They were often looking for arithmetic to leave the excursion in order for studying mind-set and longevity during their 20s and 30s, or to spare time in their 50s and 60s. Findings from analysis of tourists' behavior as sensory behavior and general behavior included various visual behaviors, such as observing fish in the stream and stars in the night sky, as well as their appreciation of the scenery. In addition, auditory behaviors, such as paying attention to the sound of nature and appreciating musical instruments, and olfactory behaviors were also appeared. Typical activities were poetry writing, water activities, and nature activities. As a result of these behaviors, Yusangi exhibits various emotional feelings and expressions of rational thoughts. Despite moderation of emotional expressions, expressions of delicate emotional thoughts stimulated modern empathy. The tradition of forest recreation as a culture of Joseon intellectuals in the 18th century will be no less favorable to the modern forest recreation culture and will be a good traditional resource for enriching our forest recreation culture. Key words : emotional feeling, 5W1H, forest recreation, korea national arboretum, visual behavior Ⅰ. Introduction landscape that offered visual pleasure (Lee, 2012). These forests and mountains have become diverse cultural backgrounds for Over 60% of the national territory in Korea consists of our people. As the scientific technology and industry developed mountains. The Korean culture is thus closely related to the in the modern times, the source of energy changed from lumber geographical features of mountains, which were objects of to oil, and the type of buildings changed from wooden to metal worship and memorial service in the pre-modern society. Up and cement buildings, which now led forests and mountains to until recently mountains have served as the source of tree perform a different cultural role. The concept of ‘forest recreation’ energy for heating and cooking, as well as lumber for con- was implemented in the forests of Korea as a source of physical struction. In addition, forests and mountains also served as a and mental rest, and now it has developed into a form of ‘forest natural infrastructure to prevent natural disasters, acting as a therapy’ that promotes mental and physical health of humans. windbreak that prevents wind, drought and flood. Furthermore, In compliance with the concept of well-being introduced by forests and mountains provided relaxation and mental comfort for the West, this developed into a forest welfare policy at the people, as well as a picnic area for enjoyment and a beautiful national level by linking forests and mountains to welfare (Korea Forest Therapy Forum, 2011). Received on April 17, 2017. Revised on May 1, 2017. Recently, concepts like forest recreation, forest therapy, and Accepted on May 30, 2017. forest welfare that emerged in the process of finding another *Corresponding author: [email protected] Copyright © 2017 by the Society for People, Plants, and Environment This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommonsorg/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Forest Recreation Culture of 18th Century Joseon Intellectuals - Focused on the Korean Translation of Yusangi - utility of forests are Western concepts originating from welfare- consist of those in literature or Chinese classics (Park and oriented national policies. The Western orientation is also Sung, 1993). There are literary analyses by writer or work (Lee common in defining the academic and philosophical theories et al., 1997), and studies on specific regions (Kang, 2003; Park, as well as principles about forest recreation or forest therapy 2005), which contributed to explaining the grounds of the (Kim, 2014). However, Koreans have had the cultural form of ideological traditions and perceptions of landscape sightseeing forest recreation already since the pre-modern society, also (山水遊覽) and analyzing the specific works of each writer referred to as the Joseon Dynasty. This originates from the (Lee, 2014). In geography, travel notes were analyzed in terms records of Yusangi (遊山記) left in the form of travel essays by of historical geography, and the traveler’s motives, itinerary, intellectuals in landscape sightseeing from the late Goryeo to places and images were analyzed specifically (Jung, 2003; Joseon period (Lee, 2014). Among the aristocrats that were the Jung, 2009; Jung, 2013). These studies have significance in ruling class of the Joseon Dynasty, those who respected Con- that they attempted to generalize the contents and customs of fucian study, pursued study as a career, or entered government landscape sightseeing in the Joseon period, and they studied service through this study are referred to as Sadaebu (Lee, the objective environment and preparations for traveling in the 2011), and they can be regarded as the intellectuals of the Joseon Joseon period by analyzing the 18th-century travel notes Dynasty. Since the early Joseon period, these intellectuals (Cheong, 2006). This is a meaningful achievement in defining enjoyed landscape sightseeing, through which they left their the traveling culture in the Joseon period as they reviewed the homes to enjoy, experience and record nature that is represented social environment and conditions for studying the form of travel as ‘landscape (山水).’ There are many different terms for the called sightseeing. There were attempts to study sightseeing in records of landscape sightseeing in the Joseon period, such as the field of history as well. Yusangi in the Joseon period was Yugi (遊記), Yurok (遊錄), and Sansugi (山水記) (Lee, 2011), analyzed in terms of Buddhist history to examine the situation but since the subject of this study is the Korean translation of of the Buddhist world such as the modalities of Buddhist Yusangi published by the Korea National Arboretum, this monks and temples (Jang, 2003). Moreover, there was the first study will use the term ‘Yusangi.’ As it can be seen from the research that integrated and examined sightseeing in the Joseon title, Yusangi consists of experiences by Joseon intellectuals period by regarding sightseeing as a cultural boost and not hanging around in the mountains, recorded mostly in the form limiting the scope to individual writers or places (Lee, 2013). of prose. Here, the meaning of hanging around is a direct The periodic and socio-historical meaning of Yusangi was also translation of the Chinese character ‘Yu (遊)’ that is also used defined by studying Yusangi that may represent each time in other words like ‘Yuhak (游學),’ which does not mean to period, after turning the late-Joseon (17-18C) Yusangi into merely ‘play’ (Seo, 2000), but a way of study for Joseon intellec- lists and statistics to analyze the status of the writers (Lee, tuals through sightseeing, mental and physical development, 2014). and exploration of cultural heritages (Lee, 2011). There are as The findings of these studies were in the process of deter- many forms of Yusangi as the number of writers, and tradi- mining the literary, cultural, social and historical meaning of tionally it had been in the form of recording the motive or Yusangi, and since Yusangi is a cultural outcome of the Joseon purpose of sightseeing at the beginning and then companions, ruling class and intellectuals, such research will be continued. followed by what they experienced in sightseeing each day However, it is difficult to find any research findings in terms of (Jung, 2013). However, in the 18th century that is the late forest recreation culture in the studies about Yusangi. This is Joseon period, the form was destroyed and the writing style because it is only recently that academic research began on and content diversified

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