Korea’s adoption of and adaptation to chinese culture recorded

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Korea's adoption of and adaptation to chinese culture recorded

The Journal of Hendrick Hamel1 is a record of Hamel's personal experiences in and observations of the Joseon Dynasty's foreign relations during his stay in Joseon 1392-1910, In Korea) after being shipwrecked there. This journal records Hamel's account of the life of the Joseon people for 13 years and 28 days from August 16, 1653, when he drifted to Jeju Island (ЙЯ'ІА), until September 14, 1666, when he escaped from Joseon. It may have been Hamel's misfortune that three of his attempts at escaping from Joseon failed, but his journal provides valuable historical data for research into Joseon's relations with ancient China (the Ming and Qing Dynasties), as well as about Joseon's adoption of and adaptation to Chinese culture. What is special about this book is that it describes the relationship of the Joseon culture to that of China: it shows how Joseon's culture was transmitted and developed in relation to Chinese culture and treats Joseon's political relations with China, which included dispatching envoys to China, paying tribute to China, and trading with the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Thus, this book has high histori-cal value for those who wish to investigate the relations between ancient China and Korea.

The importance of this book also lies in the historical period it covers. Neo-Confu-cianism, “ZhuZijiaLi” (^-НШШ, ZhuXi's Family Rituals), and The Great Ming Code were transmitted between the late Goryeo Dynasty (йМ, 918-1092, In Korea) and the early Joseon Dynasty, greatly influencing Joseon society. Even though the Joseon Dynasty adopted Chinese culture, the Joseon people did not accept it easily at first. The Joseon Government demanded that its people accept the new culture, but people were not willing to change their customs. By the mid-17th century, when this book was writ-ten, Chinese culture had been accepted by the Joseon people, and it had penetrated deeply into people's lives. As the influence of Neo-Confucianism became stronger, the preferential treatment for men over women became more pronounced, and the authority of household heads was strictly protected by the government. The Journal of Hendrick Hamel vividly presents the evident degree to which Joseon had adopted Chinese culture in this period.

Finally, before the mid-17th century, no book existed that recorded the life of the common people in Joseon. This is partly because Joseon tended to place more signifi-cance on the life of the ruling class and government officials, and partly because there was no awareness that it might be important to record the life of the common people. Thus, because Hamel's journal records his life with common people for almost 13 years, it provides valuable data for investigating the lives of common people during the Joseon Dynasty.

When this book was published in 1668 for the first time in the Netherlands, it became a best seller. As a result, two years later, it was published in French in France and, in 1671, it was published in German. In 1704, it was published in English and later in Japa-nese and Korean. In all, Hamel's journal was ultimately translated into six languages (Hamel (trans. Jean-Paul Buys), 1994; Hamel (trans. Yi Byeongdo), 1934, 1935; Hamel (trans. Yu Dongik), 2003). The book's universal popularity, in part, stemmed from the public's increasing interest in sea adventures and, in part, from the book's intriguing structure along with the content found in each part.

Hamel's book is divided into two sections. The first section contains daily logs of his voyage, starting from when he set sail for Taiwan in 1653 and ending with his arrival in Nagasaki, Japan. The latter part describes several aspects of Joseon society. To enhance understanding of Hamel's book, this paper will investigate how Chinese culture was adopted and settled in Korea by focusing on the Great Ming Code, Qinyingzhi (Ш®$У), the ancient Confucian wedding culture wherein the bridegroom came to bride's house for the wedding ceremony, and the burial culture.

Korea's adoption of and adaption to the Great Ming Code

Hamel understood the Great Ming Code very well. He knew that the Code reflected certain aspects of ancient society; for example, punishment was discriminatory, depending on the relationship between the inflictor and the victim, and there were traditional customs of honoring men but degrading women and of respecting high-ranking officials but belittling low-ranking officials. Thus, he was very confident that the Great Ming Code of China had a great

Figure 1 shows Hamel's descriptions in the form of a diagram. For similar murder cases, if husbands murdered wives and vice versa or if masters murdered slaves and vice versa, husbands and masters were not punished, but wives and slaves received the death penalty (the highest punishment): they were executed publicly after torture. The ruling power of husbands, masters, and rulers over family members, slaves, and common people, respectively, was widely recognized, whereas people of the lower classes who harmed people of the higher classes were considered as having disturbed the public order, so they were punished more severely. Such a penal system was practiced in Joseon when Taejo (Ж®) Yi Seonggye (^^Й, The first king of Joseon Dynasty), who was the founder of the Joseon Dynasty, announced the implementation of the Great Ming Code. After that, the Great Ming Code served as the criminal law for over 500 years in Joseon. The Ming Code was established by Zhu Yuanzhang (^^f$, 1328-98, The first king of Ming Dynasty), who was the founder of the Ming Dynasty. The Code was developed from The Tang Code (ШШ), but it was a more systematized law book as it generalized the complex provisions of the Tang Code. It fully reflected the value system of Confucianism [Sim Huigi 1997, 221-222] and served as a foundation for the publication of Gyeonggukdaejeon (^Ш^Л), the first law book of the Joseon Dynasty. It also greatly contributed to the Joseon society's adoption of Neo-Confucianism. If the Tang Code systematized Confucianism by incorporating it into legal regulations and ordinances, the Great Ming Code generalized the legal provisions.

The Joseon Dynasty used two principles in implementing the Ming Dynasty: one was to use the Great Ming Code as the basis of the criminal law, and the other was to apply prior laws first and state newly added provisions later, even changing legal statements as appropriate for the time. This legal system served as the basis for using the Great Ming Code as a model throughout the entire period of the Joseon Dynasty, and Hamel understood the legal system of Joseon as based on such a historical background. The following analyses demonstrate that the legal system of Joseon was operated similarly to the Great Ming Code of ancient China.

First, Hamel differentiates between crimes that required collective punishment and crimes that required the punishment of a single culprit. As a good example of collective punishment, he cites treason. He mentions that treason is the most serious crime because if a person defies the King or tries to seize the throne, his family will be exterminated, his house demolished, and his wealth and slaves confiscated. As examples of crimes calling for individual punishment, he offers murder, theft, and rape. In the case of murder, the nature of the crime is serious, but it is not considered serious enough to punish the whole family of a criminal. In the case of theft and rape, the nature of the crime is considered unethical, but punishing only the culprit is considered to be appropriate.

Second, Hamel reports that, as in China, torture is legal in the Joseon Dynasty. The legal systems of ancient nations tended to value confessions over proof, so a suspect's admission of crime was required, even if there was already clear evidence. A painting of a punishment tool is accompanied by the following description in the Great Ming Code: “If a suspect has committed a serious crime, but does not confess his crime even though there is evidence proving his crime, record the details of his crime and torture him in accordance with the law”. In adopting the Great Ming Code, the Joseon Dynasty demonstrated that it valued a suspect's confession over evidence, so it practiced torture using various tools [Seo Jin 1989]. Both the ancient Korean and Chinese states practiced torture lawfully. If a person was suspected of a crime, it was customary on the part of the government of ancient nations to capture and torture suspects. Such practices stemmed from codification that valued suspects' confession over evidence.

Third, Joseon's criminal punishment system was based on the “Five Punishments” described in the Great Ming Code, and various punishment tools were used in Joseon. The Five Punishments mentioned in the Great Ming Code are as follows: (1) Chi Punishment the lightest punishment among the Five Punishments) was classified into 5 degrees of Tae, ranging from 10 lashes to 50 lashes with a light bamboo cane; (2) Zhang Punishment (ttff J, the second lightest punishment) was classified into 5 degrees of Zhang, ranging from 60 to 100 strokes with a large stick; (3) Tu Punishment (^ffj, compulsory labor in a contained place) was classified into 5 degrees of severity, ranging from 60 to 100 strokes with a large stick, in addition to forced labor; (4) Liu Punishment (ШИ, exile to a location distant from one's place of birth) also included 100 strokes with a large stick; and (5) Si Punishment (^J, the death penalty).

Table 1. Joseon's adaptation of punishments and punishment tools

Hamel gives many useful details about both the Confucian value system and the similarity between the two penal systems. Joseon's penal system and the tools of punishment used for criminals were very similar to those of the Great Ming Code, as shown in the table above. Hamel perceived that Joseon's penal system was operated in accordance with the five-punishment system by adopting the Great Ming Code. He described the five-punishment system in detail: the size and material of punishment tools, as well as hitting areas of the body. Regarding the lightest punishment, `Chi', Hamel recorded that the size of `Chi' was 56-85 cm and this punishment administered about 30 lashes on the top of the criminals' feet and between their knees. According to Hamel's record, the severity of the Chi punishment, as well as the size and material of the punishment tools used, were almost the same as those recorded in the Great Ming Code. However, Joseon used different hitting areas because Gyeonggukdaejeon noted that the Chi punishment would be more painful if hitting were inflicted on the top of the foot and between the knees, so the location of the punishment was changed accordingly2. In the case of the remaining punishments, there is great similarity, though some were administered with modifications.

Regarding punishment tools, Hamel describes his personal experiences. The neck pillory was placed on criminals if they were captured after an escape attempt, and foot shackles were used to prevent escape. The use of the neck pillory and foot shackles was also allowed in the Great Ming Code. In the case of the neck pillory, the length was 165 cm, and the size of a hole for securing the head was about 45 cm. As the neck pillory and foot shackles were used for Japanese people as well, it seems that the punishment tools were widely used, even for foreigners [Author 2003].

In summary, the Great Ming Code had great influence on Joseon's penal system. Hamel perceived the five-punishment system as the framework of Joseon's punitive measures. He thought that Joseon imposed different punishments on the same crime, and he stated that the Joseon Dynasty was applying torture and similar punishment tools by adopting the Great Ming Dynasty.

Korea, the woman did not move into the man's house after a wedding ceremony? Furthermore, when did Joseon adopt the Chinese wedding culture?

In Korea, if a wedding ceremony lasted for a long time, the man lived in the woman's house (Seoryubuga: , Korean unique wedding culture wherein men move into women's houses). While living in the woman's house, a newly-wed couple would secure a house of their own, and the husband would prepare the household goods. The wedding ceremony was held at the bride's house, and the newly-wed couple lived in the bride's house; thus, the woman's role and power were stronger than the man's. Children also followed the family tradition of the grandfather on the mother's side, rather than on the father's side, and in this way, also, the man's role was relatively reduced. This culture was applied to the inheritance of properties as well: both daughters and sons inherited properties equally.

However, after the founding of the Joseon Dynasty and after Joseon adopted Neo- Confucianism as its political ideology, the wedding culture had to be changed accordingly. This was because the ruling class of Joseon wanted to construct a Neo-Confucian society in which all the rituals of the society and of families, as well as the legal aspects, were centered around males. As a result, Joseon society demanded that women sacrifice. The unique Confucian wedding culture placed men in a superior position to women in both family and society, so Joseon had to change its wedding culture so that Neo-Confucianism could take root in Joseon society.

Accordingly, from early in the Joseon Dynasty, the King ordered his people to follow Chinese wedding customs and to desert their old customs. However, the King's order was widely ignored. The men's families did not follow the King's order because they found it burdensome to support many grandchildren if the daughters-in-law were to move into the house. The women's families, likewise, opposed the King's order because if the son s-in-law did not move in, they would lose the benefit of their labor [Moon Hyoungjin 2003, 189-190].

The above diagram shows the progress of the change in Korean wedding customs as they changed from Seoryubuga to the Chinese Qinyingzhi. Until the Goryeo period, Korea's unique wedding ceremony, Seoryubuga, was practiced, but after the founding of Jo- seon, the Chinese wedding culture was adopted. The change did not take place very quickly, however, because the commoners stuck to their traditions, so the Chinese wedding culture was adopted only around the mid-17th century when Chinese culture was widely accepted in Joseon [Park Byeongho 1974]3, even though after the founding of Joseon in 1392, several kings had tried to change the wedding culture.

Hamel describes the Joseon wedding ceremony, as well as the prohibitions and the form of divorce in detail: “When a bridegroom goes to his bride's home to pick her up, he goes along with his friends and relatives, riding a horse and parading across the village... The bride goes to her groom's house with her husband-to-be. [Then,] the bride and bridegroom have a wedding ceremony and continue living there”. Thus, this matrimonial custom described by Hamel is different from Joseon's original wedding custom, and Hamel's record of Joseon's wedding culture has proven to be very valuable in furnishing proof that the Joseon people had at last adapted to the Chinese Qinyingzhi (see: Table 2).

Table 2. Comparison of Chinese with Korean wedding ceremonies and with Hamel's record

In addition to showing how similar the Joseon dynasty's wedding customs were to the traditional Chinese wedding ceremony, Hamel also shows that important decisions were made by the men in Joseon, which also demonstrates Neo-Confucianism's strong influence on the Joseon society. The men's authority was strictly protected so that a man could have as many wives as he could maintain, and a husband could repudiate his wife anytime and marry another woman. In addition, fathers had the right to select a spouse for their children, and they could possess their properties until they died. The Chinese letter “^”, which means “father”, represents a father flogging his child, showing that a father's authority was fully guaranteed in both China and Korea.

Nonetheless, the Joseon people could not marry just anyone they wished. Hamel notes, “Blood relatives are not allowed to marry or have a sexual intercourse until the fourth degree (i. e., the children of the father's siblings and the children of the mother's siblings)”, which prohibited marriages between families with the same surnames. Such prohibited marriages in Joseon seem to have followed the Great Ming Code, which prohibited marriage between people with the same surname, or the marriage of immediate blood relatives even if they had different surnames. Joseon even prohibited marriages between people with different family origins if they had the same surnames and strictly regulated marriages with maternal relatives by strengthening the prohibition of marriages between people with the same surnames with rules even stricter than those of China. This prohibition was necessary because of Joseon's wedding custom wherein the bridegrooms moved into the bride's home and lived with maternal relatives.

In sum, Hamel's record demonstrates that the Chinese wedding system, called Qinyingzhi, had strongly taken root by later in the mid-17th century and was widely accepted by the common people. Hamel shows the father's guaranteed authority within the family, the father's right to select a spouse for his children, and the children's filial love and respect as examples that demonstrate the close relationship of Chinese and Korean wedding customs during that time.

Adoption and adaptation of burial culture

Hamel also reports details of how the Chinese burial culture was adopted and accepted in Joseon. He describes the formality and progress of burial, as well as the mourning costumes of the chief mourners, again providing important clues that clarify Korea's adoption of and adaptation to the Chinese burial culture. Until the Goryeo period, which was the dynasty prior to Joseon, Buddhism was the national religion. Accordingly, cremation was practiced in Joseon because people believed that an ideal world, Heaven, existed after death and that cremation of the corpse would lead the soul to Heaven.

During the Joseon Dynasty, when Neo-Confucianism was adopted as a political ideology and the Great Ming Code was adopted as a political means, the funeral culture was changed accordingly. As with the wedding culture, however, the common people were not willing to give up their custom of cremating a dead body according to Buddhist funeral traditions, which they had believed and practiced for a long time. In “The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty” (ШІҐїШШ^), there is a story about a chief mourner who was crying but not burying his parent's body. When the governor of his village asked him why he did not bury the body, he replied, “If I bury my parent's body, maggots will grow in the body, so I cannot even fathom burying it”. This story explains very well why burial culture could not easily take root in the Joseon society: the man in the story was rejecting burial because he considered it to be unfilial. On the one hand, Confucianism teaches practical ethics for daily life, but on the other hand, it does not mention life after death. P eople were still worried about life after death and, thus, could not easily accept Confucianism.

The diagram in Figure 3 shows the progress of the Korean adoption of Chinese burial customs. Hamel believed that the Joseon people accepted the Chinese burial system because it included the practices of ancestral worship and geomancy (or feng shui ДЖ). People's belief their own existence in relation to their ancestors, as well as people's notion that their ancestors will continue to protect their descendants after death if the descendants serve their ancestors at a home shrine, helped the Joseon people gradually to accept Chinese burial culture. People's practice of feng shui (a Chinese system of geomancy), which claims that burying ancestors in a propitious land will bring prosperity to the descendants, produced synergistic effects along with ancestor worship. Hamel writes, “To bury the dead, much care is taken. People choose land where water cannot reach, and they take great care of the graves”. The Joseon people perceived ancestor worship as a filial duty. Another factor that helped the Chinese burial system take root in Joseon was the mandatory regulations imposed on people by the law. The Great Ming Code defined marriages during the mourning period of one's parents' death, changing into everyday clothes, and having sexual intercourse with a wife or concubine as unfilial acts, which could not be forgiven even by a general pardon. Accordingly, the Code included those acts in the Ten Abominations (that is, ten representative crimes).

Table 3. compares the structure of Korean and Chinese funeral rituals based on Hamel's record:

As indicated in Table 3, Hamel identifies three stages for the living chief mourners and the dead during funeral rituals: Separation Stage ^ Transition Stage ^ Incorporation Stage. During the Separation Stage, the children of the dead must quit their jobs im-mediately upon the death of their parents, regardless of whether their position in their job was high or low4. This symbolized the fact that the living should be separated from the reality of the world as the dead were also separated from this world. After the Separation Stage, the chief mourners and the dead entered into the Transition Stage, which is the main part of the funeral rituals. Chief mourners had to wear thick hemp clothes and hold a stick in one hand, and sexual intercourse with their spouses was no longer allowed. The chief mourners' ritual of greeting the condolers who came to the funeral was considered to be the core element of the Transition Stage. In particular, Hamel notes that the chief mourners had to eat like monks, and they were not allowed to do anything during the Transition Stage, as ascetic behaviors were considered to be the basis of carrying out filial duties. Hamel's record states, “The Joseon people have a three-year mourning pe-riod after the death of a father, whereas the mourning period after the death of a mother is two years”, demonstrating that there was a difference between funeral rituals depen-ding on whether the deceased was the male or the female parent. During the Transition Stage, the body of the deceased returns to nature. According to Hamel's record, “the dead body is temporarily kept in a small house made of straw, and burials usually take place in the fall when harvesting is done”. This shows that a form of re-interment was practiced in Joseon. Finally, the chief mourners returned to their routine lives after they had finished all the funeral rituals. The deceased then could enter the other world and begin life after death there.

The structure of the above rituals shows that the cremation customs of the Goryeo Dynasty had changed to those of the Chinese burial culture5 and that ancestral worship and the notion of filial piety had taken deep root in the mental world of the Joseon people.

Conclusion

political dynasty foreign

This paper has investigated the process of Joseon's adoption of and adaptation to the Great Ming Code, Qinyingzhi, as revealed in The Journal of Hendrick Hamel. It is clear that Hamel knew of the existence of China even before he drifted to Jeju Island in 1653.

His record indicates that he seems to have had some prior knowledge of China and Chinese culture, as deduced from his description of both Chinese troops while he was staying anchored near the coast of China because of wind storms and the people of Jeju Island who were wearing Chinese clothes when Hamel first saw them. In his journal, Hamel also records that Chinese envoys came to Korea four times a year to collect tribute, that the Koreans sold ginseng roots to the Chinese, and that in wintertime, people crossed the border between China and Korea on horseback on the frozen river.

Hamel's prior knowledge about China seems to have served as the foundation for his comparison of Joseon and Chinese customs later on. Because he was imprisoned several times, he personally witnessed people being punished, and he reported the scenes of punishment in detail. He discovered that the penal system of Joseon was based on the Great Ming Code and that the use of public torture and punishment tools was based on the system of the Five Punishments. In particular, he believed that the Confucian value system was reflected in these punishments because the severity of the punishment was adjusted depending on the relationship between the inflictors and the victims.

Even though the Chinese wedding culture, Qinyingzhi, was adopted in Joseon when the Joseon Dynasty was founded, it had been fully adopted among the common people only by the mid-17th century. Hamel's records about this development serve as valuable data in proving that it was difficult for the Joseon people to accept the Qinyingzhi system as their custom.

The same situation prevailed with the Chinese burial culture: it was widely accepted by the common people only long after its official adoption at the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty. Hamel records the acceptance of Chinese burial customs as Koreans began to build shrines at home and perform ancestral worship in accordance with the principles of feng shui. Though Hamel could see that the common people fully accepted the “new” burial culture, he also notes that some Joseon people still practiced shamanic funeral rituals or Buddhist cremation.

The Journal of Hendrick Hamel provides invaluable data for clarifying the relation-ship between China and Korea in ancient times, as it shows the profound influence the Great Ming Code exercised on the value system and lifestyles of the people living in the Joseon Dynasty. The findings here will contribute to improving cultural exchanges be-tween China and Korea in the future.

1.Hendrick Hamel (20 August 1630 - 12 February 1692) was a bookkeeper with the Dutch East India Company (the VOC). Born in The Netherlands, he lived in Joseon from 1653 to 1666.

2.The Gyeonggukdaejeon stated that “Hitting below the knees does not cause sensation up to the shinbone”, so it changed the part where one was hit to the shinbone area thus inflicting more pain. Joseon chose the area below the knees and the upper area of the shinbone for `Zhang' punishment, by observing the laws of the Gyeonggukdaejeon (Gyeonggukdaejeon. Law Book, Judgment).

3.There are several theories about Joseon's adaptation to Qinyingzhi. Son Jintae asserted that Seoryubuga existed until the mid-17th century [Son Jintae 1948] and that matrilocal marriage was a major form of the Joseon wedding ceremony, whereas Park Byeongho asserted that it existed until the mid-18th century around the reign of King Youngjo and King Jeongjo [Park Byeongho 1974].

4.If a parent died, chief mourners had to practice Dingyou (Tft) which required them to step down from their official job regardless whether their position was low or high. However, Dingyou was often abused in both Korea and China for personal interests. If chief mourners were about to be promoted to a higher position, some filed Dingyou late. On the other hand, if chief mourners were about to face punishment at work, they might fill Dingyou even before the death a parent (The Annals of the Ming Emperors, Vol. 227).

5.In the annals recorded in the 21st year of King Injo's reign (1643), there is a record: “After a

civil war, people's customs collapsed. Before the end of the mourning period, chief mourners hold a wedding ceremony for their children but they no longer think wrong.

References

1.The Annals of Joseon Dynasty

2.The Annals of King Taejo of the Ming Dynasty ВДЖШЙШ.

3.Gyeonggukdaejeon &SS^A.

4.Hendrik Hamel. (Trans. Jean-Paul Buys of Taiz): Hamel's Journal and A Description of the Kingdom of Korea by Hendrik Hamel. 1653--1666 / The Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 1994.

5.Hendrik Hamel. (Trans. Yi Byeongdo). Hamel's Journey // Jindan Hakbo. Vol. 1-3. 1935.

6.Hendrik Hamel. (Trans. Yu Dongik). Hendrick Hamel's Report. Seoul, 2003.

7.Moon Hyoungjin ^^Щ. Legal influence in accordance with the changing of wedding custom during the early Joseon Dynasty // International Area Studies. Vol. 7, No. 4. Seoul, 2003.

8.Park Byeongho #ШШ. The scope of relatives and prohibited marriage resulting from matri- local marriage // Korean Legal System. Seoul, 1974.

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