A Graduate Student Perspective- John Lee, G3, Graduate Student in Korean History/East Asian Languages (HEAL)-Summer 2013

From June through August, 2013, I was in South Korea to continue research for my dissertation project, “Protect the Pines, Punish the People: The Social Implications of Forest Conservation in Early Modern Korea, 1600-1876,” an integrated analysis of Chosŏn-era woodland protection policies, their implementation, and consequences. Also, as part of another planned future project, I conducted research about a series of canals that Korean governments tried to build through the T’aean peninsula on Korea’s western coast between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries.  

 In July, I went on a field trip through the T’aean peninsula in order to find remnants of the canal projects. Along the way, I was able to study numerous other historical sites nestled in the T’aean area. I marveled at Paekche-era Buddhist rock carvings from the eighth century, immovable from their stone quarries. I circled the old site of Ansŏng fortress, a former Chosŏn-era military installation that once entertained Chinese dignitaries and ultimately met a fiery end at the hands of Tonghak rebels. I toured the walled town of Haemi, infamous for serving as a detention and execution center during the era of anti-Catholic persecution in the late Chosŏn dynasty. I also visited museums dedicated to two colonial-era independence fighters: Han Yongun, a Buddhist monk famous for his ardent patriotism and radical politics, and Kim Chwachin, an aristocrat-turned-anarchist who led a guerilla campaign against the Japanese army in Manchuria.

 Most importantly, I was able to locate the remnants of a twelfth-century Korean canalization effort. The T’aean peninsula happened to be located along a critical shipping route between the southern grain basket and the heavily populated capital region. Moreover, the T’aean coast has been infamous for centuries for its rough waters, unpredictable tides, and proclivity for hastening shipwrecks. Hence, between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, Korean governments attempted to cut their losses by excavating a canal through the tip of the peninsula that, if successful, would have allowed grain ships to bypass the treacherous tidal flats. For various reasons, none of the canals were ever completed. Interestingly, though written records of all of the canals remain, the twelfth-century canal is presently the only one with marked, visible remains.

Then, in August, as part of my current dissertation project, I visited Hŭksan island off Korea’s southwest coast. The island was the last home of Chŏng Yakchŏn, an exiled scholar-official, Catholic convert, and author of one my most important primary sources. There in exile on Hŭksan, isolated from friends and family, he penned a remarkable treatise about the problems of forest maladministration and deforestation in late Chosŏn Korea. The work has been invaluable for its rich detail about late Chosŏn forestry institutions, and it has given me clear insights into how Choson-era scholars thought about resource management and environmental protection. I rented a bicycle and pedaled up and down the numerous hills that line the island’s coasts until I finally reached Chŏng’s old home, Sari village. After winding through the village’s tiny alleyways and countless stone footbridges, I found a well-maintained cultural park dedicated to Chŏng’s life and works, and I was finally able to soak in the wooded terrain and endless seas that had surrounded his final home. The most important part of a historian’s work is writing the work itself, and writing is rendered so much easier, plainer, clearer when we can lift our eyes from the dusty archive and see what our sources saw.