Organizer: Nam-lin Hur, University of British Columbia

Chair: JaHyun Kim Haboush, Columbia University

Discussant: Boudewijn Walraven, Leiden University

The Imjin War, often referred to as the single most significant event in East Asia before the modern era, remains a favorite topic for academic discourse and the popular entertainment industry in Korea. Much public fascination and academic attention have centered around such perennially popular topics as Admiral Yi Sunsin, naval victories, and "righteous armies." Not much attention has been paid to such crucial issues as collective memories, the relationship between wartime politics and ideology, and the possible impact of the war on the ethnic consciousness of the community. The three papers in this panel address these issues by focusing on questions of gender, ideology and language.

By focusing on Nongae and Kyewôlhyang —female entertainers who allegedly hugged Japanese generals and threw themselves into water to kill them— Jung discusses the place of female loyalty and chastity, and memories of them, in male-dominated Chosôn society, in comparison with Tokugawa Japan. By examining wartime political discourses, Hur analyzes the ideological dimensions of Confucian politics and attempts to debunk its contradictory, non-Confucian character that, ironically, helped sustain the Confucian Chosôn regime. Lastly, Haboush explores the sudden emergence and circulation of Korean vernacular script as a means of public communication during the conflict and discusses why and how a new linguistic space of "Korea" as a nation came into being. By combining these three papers in this panel, we hope to diversify and de-localize studies of the Imjin War beyond the parochial mindset of historical understanding.

Jung-Ji Young, Ewha Womans University

Nongae and Kyewôlhyang, female entertainers (kisaeng), are known for having sacrificed themselves during the Imjin War, thereby demonstrating their unyielding loyalty for their country. After describing how and why they practiced loyalty for their country in their own manner, this paper traces how both of them were remembered and evaluated by Chosôn society after the war. Popular memories of them are somewhat contrasting. Nongae, who had been forgotten in the seventeenth century, was suddenly resurrected in the eighteenth century and became an object of popular veneration and ritual offering. The state even provided financial support for these activities. On the other hand, Kyewôlhyang, who was comparable to Nongae in her loyal conduct, failed to attract any attention for a long period. This paper explores the reasons why this was the case, and situates these two female entertainers in the moral and political geography of Chosôn society.

Interestingly, the Tokugawa Japanese were fascinated by these two alien women, and they were frequently used as subjects for kabuki or puppet theater in a very different context. Devoid of any "loyal element," they were depicted as tragic female figures who plunged into twisted destinies of love and misfortune. Although they were the ones who killed Japanese generals in revenge for the invasion, Nongae and Kyewôlhyang were transformed into protagonists of love-stories that crossed state boundaries. The examples of Nongae and Kyewôlhyang offer a window through which we can see the divergent politics of the collective memories that were incubated in, yet detached from, the wartime experiences of the Imjin disaster.

Nam-lin Hur, University of British Columbia

The Imjin War of 1592-98 put the Chosôn regime, which boasted of the high standards of its alleged Confucian government, to a test. Faced with the daunting task of fending off the overwhelming military power of the Japanese invaders, however, its hollow governing structure was ruthlessly exposed and the exploitative structure of its class politics was laid bare. King Sônjo and his officials struggled to harness the energies and support of the people with their dwindling stock of moral virtue. Nevertheless, they maneuvered through the intricacies of wartime politics, directed the fighting, and were able to salvage their Confucian governing mandate. The Chosôn regime not only survived the storm of national crisis, but also continued to sustain itself for three more centuries after the war.

This paper explores how King Sônjo was able to hold on to his moral authority and power, given the fact that commoners rebelled in many areas and even offered to collaborate with the Japanese invaders. The people were deeply dismayed at the whims of a political leadership that pushed their lives into jeopardy, yet demanded unconditional sacrifice from them in the context of many different improvised schemes. Why was it so hard for the people to counter or debunk the ideological deceit of Confucian politics? By closely examining the wartime discourses on Confucian kingship that smothered political challenges and innovations, this paper aims to clarify the matrix of what I would call the "Confucian politics of contradiction" that intoxicated Chosôn society.

JaHyun Kim Haboush, Columbia University

Several months into the Imjin War, the Korean government adopted a radical language policy: to deploy Korean vernacular script as a means of communication among Koreans. Departing from the practice of exclusively using literary Chinese in public missives, many copies of royal edicts in Korean script were sent out to the public.

This policy was enacted at a moment of profound crisis to bypass the transnational literary Chinese writing space that converged on Korea. All three countries, Korea, Japan, and China, used literary Chinese, but previous communications between them had been limited mostly to diplomatic exchanges. When the three countries fought a war in Korea, foreign forces penetrated into the interior of the Korean domestic discursive space of literary Chinese. Literary Chinese was the language through which the three countries competed for power and for the attention of Koreans. The Chosôn government turned to the Korean vernacular script creating a linguistic space that included all Koreans and excluded others.

I argue that the vernacular royal edicts that the Chosôn government deployed called into being a community of "us" as opposed to "them," and that this community was "national" in that it was bounded by and inclusive of the Korean ethnolinguistic community. I contend that the creation of a vernacular national space led to a redefinition of the geo-cultural-political entity, Korea. I will discuss the historical and cultural meaning of the emergence of a vernacular national space.