Bak Hui-jung

Bak Hui-jung
Hangul 박희중
Hanja 朴熙中
Revised Romanization Bak Hui-jung
McCune–Reischauer Pak Hǔi-chung

Bak Hui-jung (1364?) was a scholar-official of the Joseon Dynasty Korea in 14th and 15th centuries.

He was also diplomat and ambassador, representing Joseon Dynasty interests in a diplomatic mission to the Ashikaga shogunate in Japan.[1]

1423 mission to Japan

King Sejong dispatched a diplomatic mission to Japan in 1423. This embassy to court of Ashikaga Yoshinori was led by Bak Hui-jung.[1]

The delegation from the Joseon court traveled to Kyoto in response to a message sent by the Japanese shogun;[1] and also, the delegation was charged with conveying an offer to send a copy of a rare Buddhist text.[2]

A diplomatic mission conventionally consisted of three primary figures—the main envoy, the vice-envoy, and a document official. Also included were one or more official writers or recorders who created a detailed account of the mission.[3] In this instance, the vice-envoy was Yi Ye,[4] who would return to Japan in 1432 as ambassador.[1]

The Japanese hosts may have construed these mission as tending to confirm a Japanocentric world order.[5] The Joseon diplomats were more narrowly focused in negotiating protocols for Joseon-Japan diplomatic relations.[1]

Recognition in the West

Bak Hui-jung's historical significance was confirmed when his mission was specifically mentioned in a widely distributed history published by the Oriental Translation Fund in 1834.[2]

In the West, early published accounts of the Joseon kingdom are not extensive, but they are found in Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu (published in Paris in 1832),[6] and in Nihon ōdai ichiran (published in Paris in 1834). Joseon foreign relations and diplomacy are explicitly referenced in the 1834 work.

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Kang, Etsuko H. (1997). Diplomacy and Ideology in Japanese-Korean Relations: from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, p. 275.
  2. 1 2 Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Annales des empereurs du japon, p. 330.
  3. Walraven, Boudewign et al. (2007). Korea in the middle: Korean studies and area studies, p. 362.
  4. Kang, p. 72.
  5. Arano Yasunori (2005). "The Formation of A Japanocentric World Order," The International Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 2 , pp 185-216.
  6. Vos, Ken. "Accidental acquisitions: The nineteenth-century Korean collections in the National Museum of Ethnology, Part 1," p. 6.

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, April 26, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.