Choson Korean officials in the land of Tokugawa Japan: Ethnic perceptions in the 1719 Korean embassy

The diplomacy of Korean embassy (t'ongsinsa in Korean, tsushinshi in Japanese) with Japan in the seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries established Korea-Japan relations on the framework of peace and amicability - one that is often referred to as the crystallization of "neighborly exchange" (kyorin in Korean, korin in Japanese). But when we situate this in the larger historical context that includes Japan's invasion of Korea in the late sixteenth century, and its intrusion and colonization of Korea at the turn of the nineteenth century, the nature of "amicability" is called into question. Based on materials that describe how Korean officials from a "Confucian land" interacted with Japanese counterparts and perceived Japanese culture and society, as well as how the Japanese received and treated a corps of foreign visitors to their "land of the gods" (shinkoku), this article examines a deep layer of ethnocentric animosity and conflict lurking beneath the spectacle of diplomatic exchanges.