Earticle

The opium narratives with a Gyeongseong setting in 1930s represent an opium addict as a patient. The stigma of an opium addict represents their lives uniformly and resultingly. Let’s have a look at all sides of an opium addict, they were an intellectual, a rich person’s child, an employee, a gisaeng, a libertine, and so on. Once they were branded as opium addicts,their social existence were disappeared. They were converged as not individual beings but beings without a difference. They were perceived as time-limited beings and parasitic beings. They were regarded as dangerous characters and potential criminals. After they lost a living foundation, they wandered hospital and ended up homeless people. Significant numbers of opium addicts were not received care, and they did not dare to return to society by a rehabilitation. Finally, they got a cold reception and met miserable death. In 1930s, opium addicts in colony city Gyeongseong were marginal people who were expelled from the home, the family, and the society. They showed clearly the historical condition of colony city Gyeongseong. Opium addicts were the gloomy portraits of colony Gyeongseong in 1930s. The tragedy of colony city Gyeongseong which lost a historic view and were robbed a living foundation, were apparent in the life of opium addicts. Opium addicts were poisoned in opium dens and injection houses, and they were treated in public clinics and private clinics. But most opium addicts were not treated properly,and were in a state of total neglect. They rushed in Sajik park in Gyeongseong. An altar to the State deities was a holy ground of Joseon Dynasty, but by being developed under the cloak of modern city park, was desecrated a national identity. Sajik park showed clearly a coloniality of Gyeongseong. After all, the opium narratives with Gyeongseong Setting in 1930s offer of beginning which represent coloniality by a character and a space.

Seoul has been the heart of Korea’s culture center of the country from Choseon Dynasty. Especially, during the pre-modern era, the aspect of Seoul as a culture circulating space remarkably increased. The cultural community in the pre-modern era showed totally different aspects in comparison with previous cultural situations. It was the area of Gwangtonggyo that most represented such a changing aspect. The major reason why the area of Gwangtonggyo played a central role in consuming and supporting culture was that most culture patrons resided in the area in the pre-modern era. Moreover, the aspects of commercial city in the area of Gwangtonggyo contributed to establishing a cultural tendency during the pre-modern era. The area of Gwangtonggyo in the pre-modern era was the center of producing, consuming and circulating culture. A space for circulating painting and calligraphy as a modern meaning based on Ji-Jun located around Gwangtonggyo was established and publishing and circulating books began increasing. Such an aspect in the area of Gwangtonggyo gradually expanded to the whole area of Jongro. 서울학연구 LI I I (2013. 11) 93Around Gwangtonggyo, various modern culture was produced and went on sale and a vital interaction among cultural personages, art sponsorship activities, and energetic art and literature activities of dominant figures of the time appeared. Therefore, the area of Gwangtonggyo in the pre-modern era is considered to build a status as ‘a space for circulating painting and calligraphy.’This study attempted to examine the track of a culture circulating space in Seoul during the pre-modern era, exclusively limiting to the area of Gwangtonggyo. The purpose of this study includes exploring the aspects of a culture circulating space and making an effort to reinterpret the history of Seoul as a center of culture.

This paper aims to search the backgrounds and contents of court banquets for the aged in the period of Sejong. In this search, we can understand how these banquets performed for the formation of social order for virtuous and courteous politics which King Sejong designed. The banquet for the aged was the symbol of the royal politics which was thought as ideal Confucian politics. In these banquets, king was able to show his courtesy by treating the aged, emulate the good behavior of them and listen the good advice from them. Taking care of the aged by king was able to be the good example for the whole country. By this example, it is thought that courteous society in which seniors were respected and the aged were well taken care of and the filial piety and brotherly love were prevalent could be come true. New political order was established after Taejong. In this situation, the banquet for the aged received attention as the mechanism which could enlarge the filial piety and brotherly love and realize the road of sage king. Sejong held court banquet for the aged over 80of Hanseongbu (Capital Prefecture). The features of this banquet were as follows. This banquet was not Taehak banquet for the aged in which appeared in the ancient statute but court banquet for the aged. The objects of this banquet were expanded to male and female seniors over 80 of Hanseongbu including seniors of lowest class. King and queen hold the banquet in different time, in Geunjeongjeon (Grand Audience Hall) and Sajeongjeon (Council Hall) of Gyeongbokgung respectively. Furthermore, Sejong ordered to hold banquets for the aged in the regions and tried to edify through these banquets by expanding objects to barbarians (Yeojin tribe). The banquet for the aged in the period of Sejong in which the king, vassal and people were participated was realization of the gracious politics by respecting for and taking care of the elderly with Hanseongbu as the center. The king and queen were able to be the central figures of the Confucian edification and the courteous order through this process. The banquet for the aged in the period of Sejong was thought as attempt to realize the royal politics with Confucianism in which the king, vassal, people and barbarian got along amicably and the filial piety and brotherly love were prevalent.

The places in Seoul the long-resident overseas Chinese in Korea flock together to live nearby to each other today have lost their continuity in significance with “Chinatown”. Chinatowns in many world cities succeeded in their old networks notwithstanding the diversified settlement composition with the new-wave Chinese immigrants who need not be restricted to Chinatown. The situation in Korea where Chinatowns are newly ‘developed’for commercial functions seems not totally different on surface, but the vicissitudes of Chinese enclave in Korea are atypical. This study explores the way in which the Chinese living districts in the capital city of Seoul are formed and transformed in the various East-Asian historical dynamics surrounding the Chinese in Korea. The Chinese diaspora in Korea began as Qing’s strategic dispatch, and under the patronage of the Qing army, Chinese immigrants in Seoul could settle in the political and economic center of the capital, in such regions as Jongro, Myungdong, and Sogongdong. Going through critical nodes of the modern Korean history such as Japanese colonial rule,Korean War, or the ideological divisions of both Korea and China, not only the population size but also vocational composition and native places of the Chinese in Korea are shaken up to the extent that their concentration in spatial terms could not develop into the continuously working Chinatown. Their natural ethnic enclave which started through the pre-modern Chinese imperialistic plan was disassembled by the equally nationalistic development plan of the modern Korean government. And the new Chinese cluster in Yeonhee-Yeonam area has been made possible by various national and supranational political and economic changes. The formation and transformation of the Chinese-concentrating districts in Seoul reveals the history that Chinese diaspora and the place, Seoul have gone through together.

The purpose of this paper is to study a social reflection of the transitional period and a thematic consciousness in Jaedam(才談) of the 1910, 1920s by considering it as the comic figurations of people of Seoul and in the country. This paper also aims to consider an awareness of Seoul and a sociocultural meaning of laughter in the Jaedam. The comic figurations of people of Seoul and in the country are as follows: 1. Country people repeat a mistake when facing Seoul, a symbol of modern civilization. They are drawn as comic because of the mistakes. 2. Seoul people think country people a babe in the woods. So they are trying to deceive country people. Rather, Seoul people are put to shame by country people who are so witty. 3. Seoul and country people make a ludicrous situation because they are behind the times. Social aspects and thematic consciousness reflected in Jaedam of the 1910, 1920s can be summarized as follows: 1. With laughter the Jaedam of the transitional period tried to embrace even mistakes and errors of those who were left behind during the procedure of accepting modern culture. 2. The Jaedam of the transitional period tried to satirize people who have caused inappropriate situations because they had become dull to change of time and sense of life. 3. The Jaedam of the transitional period tried to draw self-reflection to human relations which have been distorted as materialism spreaded. In conclusion, the Jaedam of the transitional period is a form of literature that is to reflects on social issue through the laughter at the time. With laughter, the Jaedam had maintained balance between criticism and sympathy. This balance is sociocultural meaning of the laughter in the Jaedam of the transitional period.