Cultural Exchange Between Korea and China Under the Cultural Policies of the Late 18 Century
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Cultural Exchange between Korea and China under the Cultural Policies of the Late 18th Century: Exploring the Friendship between Pak Chega (1750-1805?) and Luo Pin (1733-1799) through Their Poetry Wonjung CHOI A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Humanities and Languages Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences February 2020 Table of Contents Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS x LIST OF FIGURES xi INTRODUCTION 1 1 Pak Chega and Luo Pin 1 2 Previous Studies 5 3 Research Questions 15 CHAPTER 1 Pak Chega and Luo Pin Meet Face to Face at Liulichang: Understanding Perspectives on Friendship in 18th Century Korea and China 24 1.1 The Significance of Liulichang in Yanjing, China 25 1.2 Pak Chega Meets Luo Pin 41 1.3 The Friendship 52 CHAPTER 2 The Cultural Policies of King Chŏngjo and Emperor Qianlong: The Socio- Cultural Influences on Pak Chega’s and Luo Pin’s Friendship 65 2.1 Political Imperatives Underpinning the Cultural Policies of Chŏngjo and Qianlong 65 2.2 Similarities and Differences between the Cultural Policies of Chosŏn Korea and Qing China 77 2.3 Spatial Dimensions of Chŏngjo’s and Qianlong’s Cultural Projects: 84 The Kyujanggak 85 Yangzhou 93 CHAPTER 3 The Cultural Exchanges of Pak Chega and Luo Pin: The Impact of the Cultural Policies of Chŏngjo and Qianlong 103 3.1 The Literary Inquisitions and the Question of Scholarly Publishing 103 3.2 Cultural Exchanges at Liulichang 122 3.3 The Cultural Exchange between Pak Chega and Luo Pin 134 CHAPTER 4 Teachers and Literary Communities 146 4.1 Teachers and Literary Communities 147 4.2 The Scholarly Friends of Pak Chega and Luo Pin 162 4.3 Comparing Pak Chega’s and Luo Pin’s Poems 177 CHAPTER 5 Pak Chega’s and Luo Pin’s Cultural Exchange Based on Their Literary Works 192 5.1 A Shared Literary Theory 193 5.2 A Shared Art Theory 206 5.3 Poetry about Artistic Works 213 CONCLUSION 234 BIBLIOGRAPHY 239 APPENDIXES A Biographical Information about Pak Chega and Luo Pin 256 B Biographical Dictionary of Important Figures 258 C Important Institutions and Literary Works 262 D Major Events in Chosŏn Korea and Qing China 266 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Gregory Evon and Scientia Prof. Louise Edwards, for all their support and advice. I would also like to thank Prof. Jon von Kowallis, Dr. Ping Wang, and Dr. Pan Wang, for taking the time to read and give advice on chapter drafts as part of UNSW’s postgraduate review process. I would also like to thank Dr. Aat Vervoorn, Duncan Campbell, Dr. Roald Maliangkay, Dr. Mark Strange, Dr. Nathan Woolley, Dr. Mary Cody, Dr. Hsiao-chun Hung, Dr. Hsin-tien Liao, Prof. Hyaeweol Choi, and Prof. Anne McLaren for their encouragement and advice to undertake a PhD program. I am grateful to the KF (Korea Foundation), from which I have received scholarships while undertaking my PhD program. I would also like to acknowledge Prof. Ross King at UBC, who provided me with an opportunity to attend a workshop in Vancouver. Likewise, I am grateful to the KSAA (Korean Studies Association of Australasia). The KSAA helped to administer the KF scholarship, and it also provided an opportunity to attend a conference in Auckland, where Prof. Kenneth Wells and Dr. Ruth Barraclough kindly read my paper and gave advice. I would like to give thanks to the PRC (Postgraduate Research Coordinator) and staff at UNSW; staff at the Menzies library; staff, especially Chinese and Korean librarians, at the NLA (National Library of Australia); and staff at the ACT public library. They all provided kind support and help. I would also like to give thanks to Dr. Lillian Smyth, who is also a friend, and Brian Ursich, who is a former English teacher, for their advice and help in writing a PhD thesis in English. I have appreciated all support from former supervisors in Korea, my colleagues, friends in Canberra and in Korea, aunt, parents’ neighbour, and close family in Sydney. Lastly, I am thankful for the support from my family, especially, my father, who also studied at UNSW. x LIST OF FIGURES 1 The route from Chosŏn Ŭiju to Qing Yanjing Koreans travelled to China 29 2 Map of Liulichang during the Qing 36 3 A portrait of Pak Chega by Luo Pin with a poem 43 4 A self-portrait of Luo Pin 46 5 Part of the Guiqutu painting (A Painting on the Destiny of Ghosts) by Luo Pin 48 6 A painting of the Kyujanggak (Royal Library) 88 7 The salt transport bypasses Yangzhou 100 8 A painting of black ink plum blossom 143 xi INTRODUCTION Pak Chega and Luo Pin The Korean Pak Chega (朴齊家 1750–1805?) and his Chinese friend, Luo Pin (羅聘 1733–1799), first met at Liulichang (琉璃廠) in Yanjing (modern-day Beijing) in 1790. Their friendship was forged despite their brevity of their meetings and the hundreds of kilometres separating their hometowns. Pak Chega was a scholar and poet from Hangsŏngbu (漢城府), the capital of Korea during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1910) while Luo Pin was a painter from Yangzhou (揚州), China during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). In 1394, King Taejo (太祖), who established Chosŏn in 1392, moved the capital from Gaegyŏng (開京) to Hanyangbu (漢陽府), and in 1395 he renamed it Hansŏngbu. Hansŏngbu was the center of Korean politics, economics, and culture for 515 years and the high level of Pak’s intellectual achievements emerged from within this rich environment.1 Similarly, Luo Pin benefited from the unique cultural environment of the Qing city of Yangzhou. Yangzhou was a prefectural-level city in China’s Jiangsu province (江蘇省) and, being located on the northern bank of the Yangzi river, became a cultural and economic hub as a result of its proximity to the Grand Canal, the main transport link between north and south China. Yangzhou’s economy and culture flourished especially during Qing dynasty largely because of its control of the production and distribution of a key commodity, salt. The wealth produced through the commerce surrounding the salt trade meant Yangzhou became a centre of cultural innovation as wealthy residents sponsored myriad literary and artistic activities. Yangzhou was recognized as being distinctive in both the quantity and quality of its cultural output during the Qing dynasty (see Jin Jinling 1995, 347-348). The two men’s mutual appreciation of each other’s intellect, poetry and art 1 The capital was renamed again as Kyŏngsŏngbu (京城府) in 1910 (see Han’guk minjok munhwa daebaekkwa sajŏn 1980). 1 overcame the barriers of distance and culture through the shared medium of classical Chinese. These two scholars, one Korean and the other Chinese, each brought to their friendship the distinctive and vivid cultural milieu of their own countries—their shared erudition was enriched by these personal experiences. Both of their governments’ cultural policies were destined to become historically significant, as compared to other periods in Korean and Chinese history making the interactions between these two men important for understanding the socio-cultural environments of this time. Their friendship illuminates how the historically important cultural policies of both the Qing and the Chosŏn governments impacted the lives and works of individual bureaucrat-scholars and artists alike. It demonstrates that despite the attempts of their respective governments to enforce strict rules on scholarly activity, individual scholars found ways to continue to develop their own creative, intellectual and political interests. Personal friendships and scholarly networks, this thesis shows, were crucial to those developments. Curiously, official policies designed to constrain scholarly activities had the effect of helping promote these friendships—in particular through the emergence of specific locations and institutions that became hubs for scholarly exchange. When Pak Chega met Luo Pin in China in 1790, he was visiting Yanjing in fulfilment of his official duty as a Chongsagwan (從事官: a scholar attached to a diplomatic mission). Specifically, he was to participate in the Qianlong Emperor’s birthday celebrations under the terms of Korea’s and China’s diplomatic relations. For his part, Luo Pin had been living at Guanyin ge (觀音閣: Guanyin Pavilion), near Liulichang (琉璃廠), in Yanjing since 1779 in order to work on his painting and also, for the freedom it gave him to personally associate with other artists living in the vicinity of this cultural hub. Pak Chega and Luo Pin first encountered each another in Liulichang filled with bookstores, art galleries and artists—features that the district retains today. Liulichang’s first two characters, Liuli, literally mean “glass” in Chinese, and the name as a whole means “glass factory or factories.” The name came from the fact that glass tile factories had been located there during the 2 Ming dynasty when the Forbidden city, Zijincheng (紫禁城), the imperial palace was under construction. After Zijincheng was complete, bookstores started to open where the glass tile factories once were. This changed Liulichang from an industrial area into a cultural site with lots of bookstores. Liulichang flourished during the Qianlong emperor’s reign because he promoted a number of large-scale publication projects, such as the Siku quanshu (四庫全書: Emperor’s Four Treasuries; hereafter, Siku quanshu), which resulted in a huge number of books being produced, circulated and sold there. Liulichng retains its reputation as a cultural space among Chinese people and tourists through to the present day (Yu Hongjun 2002, 219). Individuals engaged in creative occupations, such as writers or painters, were able to associate easily at Liulichang during the Qing dynasty.