회고回顧/懷古

While Korea is optimal for enhancing humanity,

While armed special forces broke the glass of the National Assembly, which originally had no authority, and upheld the shabby grandeur of Yoon Suk-yeol, citizens gathered one by one in Yeouido and supported the buttocks of the congressmen who climbed over the wall. That winter, citizens sat in the snow all night and, as the year passed, pushed for the resignation of the Yoon family, who tried to defend the law of a lawless country. We are heroes who saved the country with silent shouts.

However, there are also people who openly mock politicians who blocked the muzzles of special forces with their hands, and there are overseas Koreans who were already aware of the coup plan to wipe out the leftist communist forces in two days and were full of dreams. This is the reality of the world we live in.

Nevertheless, as a result of the unity of hearts during that moment of crisis, the wave of foreigners overflowing across the country - meaning South Korea - and the money they spend, opening their wallets, is now flowing into the hands of merchants, rewarding their hard work. We should be grateful for our current happiness, even if only for a moment, but this phenomenon is not a coincidental stroke of luck that appeared overnight.

This context cannot be explained without historical perspective. When the nation was perishing due to foreign invasion, there are records of Westerners visiting Korea who witnessed the situation of a ruined country. There are no records of our own documenting the late Joseon period. Even if they exist, they are fabricated or stolen, and very few original documents are preserved, limiting their use as historical sources. Therefore, we are unable to diagnose ourselves from a hundred years ago with our own records, but we can use the travelogues of others as a mirror. If you look closely, there are as many records as grains of sand on the beach, and if you are entrenched in colonial historiography, the records of others are completely invisible, like someone else's story.

However, there are individuals who filled in the lost historicity of that era. They are Park Dae-heon (朴大憲, 1953~) of Hosanbang (壺山房) and Shin Bok-ryong (申福龍, 1942~) of Konkuk University's Department of Political Science and Diplomacy. Publisher Park Dae-heon faced near bankruptcy after publishing <Western Books on Korea 1655-1949>. The book, which involved over 10 years of data collection and was over a thousand pages long, cost 1.5 million won when it was published in 1996. He was the first intellectual to turn his attention to the perspective of others on late Joseon, a topic that no one in our society or government had paid attention to. The fact that a mere publisher personally undertook such a vast work with his own money was probably not because he failed to weigh success as a publishing executive, but because his sense of mission to recognize the value of records came first.

Park Dae-heon / Shin Bok-ryong

Professor Shin Bok-ryong, a distinguished professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Konkuk University, during his time as a professor, mobilized his students to take turns translating one page at a time of foreigners' records from the period of national decline, completing a series titled <Foreigners' Records of the Late Joseon Dynasty 1-23> (1999-2000, Jipmoondang). This multilateral horizon created by collaborative translation is literally 'shared intellectual wealth.' One might talk about copyright, but that's a story from a bygone era when humans were self-important. In this age of reliance on AI, humans have become pathetic, having handed over even the rights to their works to machine civilization, so obsolescence is a foregone conclusion due to biological limitations.

This foregone conclusion may soon erode the human mind to the point where the self in front of the mirror faces an era of 'Persona Alienation' or 'Loss of Persona,' and humans may have functionally degenerated so much that they won't even notice the shock. From this perspective, Park Dae-heon and Shin Bok-ryong were intellectuals who tried to view and utilize humans as intelligent beings through classical methods. Their efforts remain as important historical materials that, at the threshold of the 21st century, looked back at the past, directly contrasting with the materialism that rapidly changed Korean society after the IMF crisis.

Why did they visit Korea?

The history of Western Caucasians visiting Korea dates back to the late Joseon Dynasty, when 'tourism to experience the demise of Joseon' was in vogue. While today the main purpose of visiting Korea is to experience food and daily life, back then, Westerners, who disembarked from ships arriving in Jemulpo in the cold winter under the guise of various explorations, surveys, investigations, and reporting, spent several months or even years sketching the scenery within the Four Great Gates, interviewing people, and taking exotic photographs with their equipment. These photographs remain in museums, universities, and art galleries around the world, but there is no guarantee that the scenery in those old photographs is what we know today. In particular, commercial photographs from certain companies sometimes show 'our past' as we remember it, but they can also be photographs that make us suspect they are a piece of a staged image, depicting unfamiliar landscapes about which we have no information.

Among them, some expressed their sorrow at the disappearance of a civilization spanning thousands of years, leaving behind a few lines of their impressions, while others, conversely, tried to gain even a single additional benefit. At a time when many Western businessmen had already entered the country, preempting mines, plant resources, and human resources, those who sought to document a civilization soon to disappear from the earth also predicted that Koreans would never perish as they were. This was their universal view, having come for reasons different from the Western missionaries of centuries past, and it was also a reflection on the nature of the Korean people, having experienced the serious attitude and wisdom of the Joseon people's lives.

Westerners, encountering the barbaric era of the 20th century in Joseon, witnessed a benevolent populace who were an organic part of nature, shaping themselves within society and culture, and living faithfully. They sought to personally observe the benefits and regrets that their demise would bring, and the existence of a changing world. However, the scenery of the capital of the dying nation transformed at night. Around 8 PM, when a large bell rang, men returned home and women went out. This rule had been strictly enforced for a very long time, and only groups of women, accompanied by servants carrying lanterns, roamed the dark streets. The foreigners who witnessed this civilization, where women's time was permitted at night, were those who belonged to the exceptional groups: blind men, officials, servants of foreigners, and those taking prescriptions to pharmacies.

Even when foreign powers pointed their guns at them, the peaceful, wise people, who understood the principles of yin and yang and nature, remained earnest in their lives. However, lethal weapons ultimately led to the extinction of their species and the destruction of traditional order. As the starting line of a proper life collapsed and acts of treason and espionage poured forth, generations changed. Those born into modernity with corrupted humanity sided with coups, dictatorships, assassinations, and malicious imitations. Humans change. An evil environment produces evil people, and a good environment creates good people. Currently, Korea is a struggling multitude, desperately clinging to the edge of a cliff. It stands at a breaking point, having lost its history, its self, and suffering while embracing a past where it doesn't know when, where, or what happened.

The reason for recording the past and its utility

Koreans who don't remember where or what happened, and amnesiac Koreans reborn on the Korean Peninsula, all live, eat, drink, play, and sleep, relying on the convenience of life and the stability of public order. Foreigners who want to reflect on their lives are all equally soulless. If we want to use the historicity of the past as a mirror to illuminate the future by opposing it today, we must look at it properly. In addition to the records of Koreans compiled by Park Dae-heon and Shin Bok-ryong, countless other records remain. We need to re-examine and reclassify various conditions and understand the era of publishing censorship, but some of the memories we've missed are within these records.

1. Foreign travelogues and observations on Joseon published in the 19th century

2. Works published in the 20th century based on experiences visiting Joseon in the 19th century

3. Academic journal travelogues and diplomatic reports by foreigners related to 19th-century Joseon

Just as the life wisdom shown by the genes of old Koreans in a dalgona coffee making video uploaded by someone during the COVID-19 lockdown provided positive and humorous inspiration to humanity in crisis, the invisible solidarity of citizens also exerted power in modern Korea, which cannot exceed the pathetic level of the three branches of government. I had a premonition that this wisdom would someday become a genre, but I didn't expect it to come so quickly. Our lives, as seen through the eyes of Westerners who recorded the lives of Koreans in the late Joseon Dynasty, have returned to history through the laws of the universe, but the forces that conspired with Yoon Suk-yeol's rebellion are still strong in politics. Destruction or revival, that is the question. I’ll be back...but where?