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There were encounters between Chosŏn 朝鮮 scholar Hong Tae-yong 洪大容 (1731- 1783) and Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Augustin von Hallerstein (1703-1774), whose Chinese name was Liu Songling 劉松齡 at the South Church (Nantang 南堂) in Beijing on the 9th day of the 1st month of 1766. Hong Tae-yong, who wanted to learn advanced Western technology, met Hallerstein personally three times and asked him about various aspects of astronomy, Western technology, musical instruments, and Catholicism. He recorded these encounters in classical Chinese in one of the chapters of Tamhŏn yŏn'gi 湛軒燕記 (Hong Tae-yong's record of an embassy to Beijing), entitled "Yu P'o mundap" 劉鮑問答 (Questions and answers with Hallerstein and Gogeisl). He also recorded these encounters in vernacular Korean in his Ŭlbyŏng yŏnhaengnok 乙丙燕行錄 (Record of an embassy to Beijing in 1765-1766). This study discusses how Hallerstein's and Gogeisl's names came to be recorded on the two red papers used to accept Hong's request for the visit, and further analyzes the historical context related to the red papers. This study also introduces Hallerstein's letter concerning Chosŏn and attempts to evaluate the encounter between Hong Tae-yong and Hallerstein. Ultimately, in explaining how the background and surroundings of that time made it difficult for their relationship to develop in a constructive way, this study tries to shed light on one case of important interactions between Chosŏn and the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean historical documents have abundant records of river works. Extensive related records during the Joseon Dynasty (CE 1392–1910) were investigated and analyzed. The evolution of man-made urban stream, Cheonggyecheon the center of old downtown Seoul, Korea was reviewed. In 1410, after a big flood, 52,800 soldiers were mobilized from whole country to improve waterway in the capital. King Sejong continued to enhance the river maintenance. The dredging and expansion for main stream including tributaries was conducted to reduce flood risk. It was a landmark river engineering project for the improvement of the capital's infrastructure. King Yeongjo planned and initiated the massive river work project. 200,000 people were recruited from five local provinces to widen the stream and to build up the stone embankments, and the waterways were straightened up to present conditions. After the project, the Juncheonsail , a construction report was published and adopted as a practical guideline for river management. As a result, floods in downtown of the capital had been somewhat controlled though, since then every King of the Joseon Dynasty had deep consideration on river maintenance including dredging and embankment against flood and sedimentation. This paper aims to introduce a brief history of the systematic urban river management in ancient Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has focused on Yi Ki-ji's 1720 mission to survey the unique characteristics of his embassy to Beijing. The level of interest that Yi recorded in his yŏnhaengnok in Western painting, astronomy, and calendrical science--including accounts of the nine visits he made to the missionaries at the cathedrals--is difficult to find in other yŏnhaengnok of his time. Given that the scholarly consensus has until now been that it was only in the late eighteenth century that yŏnhaengnok began to display an active, explicit reception of "Northern Learning" (Pukhak),1 we cannot but conclude that Yi's record was ahead of its time. The unique aspects of Yi Ki-ji's yŏnhaengnok reveal the necessity of reconsidering the conventional wisdom regarding these embassies and their records, which holds that it was not until the mid to late eighteenth century that the objective realities of Qing life were recognized among Chosŏn's ambassadors or that the cultural attributes of the Qing were actively sought out and favorably accepted. Yi Ki-ji's embassy to Beijing alerts us to the fact that-though exceptional-the act of asserting Chosŏn's autonomous identity, while at once working earnestly to recognize and accept the realities of Qing China when necessary, was not impossible in the early eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explore the relativeness between the acceptance of Neo- Confucianism and the change of the status of "the people" in Korean history. My critical viewpoint is the question as follows: even though the minbon principle of "people as the basis" espoused by Neo-Confucian could be merely the ideology for rule, what result had the difference of existence or non-existence of that principle brought about? And even though that might be unintended consequences, what change had that principle including Neo-Confucianism brought about the noticeable one of their habitual mind on politics to not only Neo-Confucian scholars but also the people? In order to clarify the change of the relativeness, I chose the historical approach and tried to trace the trajectory of the change in Choson period of Korea. Then, my study yielded the following result: the being-in-place of the principle itself and Confucian intellectuals' efforts to practice the principle could have made a noticeable change into the people's habitual mind on politics and could have affected the people's social and political status over time. Especially, compared with the early period of state-building, a difference could not but appear during the mid-Choson period in which the minbon principle was taking roots among the people and the people experienced large scale wars, disasters, and widespread famines. In the case of the outbreaks of those country-wide calamities, what the political elite did could not meet the people's expectation and the elite seemed unable to live up to their long-cherished principle of minbon, with the result that, despite the Neo- Confucians' original intention, the principle of minbon began to be used against the elite themselves as the philosophical base of the people's opposition against unreasonable rule. As a result, a most important change took place in the people's own concepts, when they began to think of themselves as eligible as participants in the public sphere and their most possibly active participation as an obligation. They began to realize that the political order based on minbon principle should be not for the official but for the people, and for this purpose, the order should be opened and administrated on the principle of public participation. This way they were motivated to study the ways for the people's participation. Despite expected differences in locality and social class, it would be reasonable to think that such an idea was gradually spreading and penetrating through the people's mind over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]