- Volume 55 (2021)
- Vol. 55 (2021)
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- Issue 2
- No. 2
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- Pages 279 - 302
- pp. 279 - 302
Chosŏn Interpreters as Cultural Brokers: The Example of Kim Kyŏng-mun and the 1722 Mission to Beijing
Pages 279 - 302
DOI https://doi.org/10.13173/jasiahist.55.2.0279
literary genre that allows the exploration of the entanglement of Chinese and
Korean history between the 15th and 19th centuries. As the studies of various
records of the
genre considered interpreters to be their intermediaries for collecting
information or communicating with the Chinese during missions to Beijing.
Interpreters were essential to the missions' operations, facilitating cultural
interaction, but they also shaped Chosŏn's perceptions of Qing China. This
article traces the emergence of Chosŏn official interpreters in the Qing era to
examine how interpreters' cultural and diplomatic practices became significant
in the making of Qing-Chosŏn relations. In particular, this article explores the
role Chosŏn interpreter Kim Kyŏng-mun 金慶門 (1673-1737) played as a cultural
broker on the 1722
of how interpreters mediated the knowledge that Chosŏn intellectuals received
about China during the
their discourse about China. Furthermore, this article contributes to the
reevaluation of the Chosŏn interpreters, conceding them a dominant role instead
of affording them only a marginal position, and it serves to deepen the
understanding of Chosŏn's perception of Qing China during the 18th century.
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