Our memories of Hyangris can be summed up in two words: one is “Ganri” that refers to wicked Hyangris and the other “Hokri” referring to heartless Hyangris. A common Korean expression, “ajeonseureopda”, also describes a person who flatters his supervisors and is merciless to his subordinates. There is no other kind of memory when it comes to Hyangris. There is no doubt that the first and foremost cause of Hyangris being the object of disgust among both the general public and the ruling class lies in Hyangris themselves and their wrongdoing. However, a different cause must have worked in the fact that there remain no documents or records favorable to them today. It can be partially explained by the fact that both the ruling class and the common people blamed Hyangris for the social and economic contradictions of the time. The central government showed horrendous lack of concern with the financial resources of local government after the 18th century, which drove local guns and hyeons toward chronic financial deficit. Local officials and Hyangris resorted to every means possible including legal and illegal to secure financial resources and resolve financial deficit. There were many reasons the general public was poverty-stricken and subject to illegitimate exploitations, and some of them include the nation's financial structure, decreasing paddies and dry fields, and climate changes. But common people must have held the biggest grudge against Hyangris that collected taxes, and the ruling class must have found them the ideal scapegoat to take blame for them. Today the academy is working on “democratization of memory” from the appearance of social history to that of women's history trying to alter the dominating memory of history through the resistance memories of the minor or marginal groups that were suppressed or forgotten in history. It's true that there are diverse memories of failure with putting Hyangris in history. We can make our history richer by integrating those memories and attempting to explain contradicting memories comprehensively. There is no more room for historical narration confined within a dichotomy of good and evil or true and false.

Our memories of Hyangris can be summed up in two words: one is “Ganri” that refers to wicked Hyangris and the other “Hokri” referring to heartless Hyangris. A common Korean expression, “ajeonseureopda”, also describes a person who flatters his supervisors and is merciless to his subordinates. There is no other kind of memory when it comes to Hyangris. There is no doubt that the first and foremost cause of Hyangris being the object of disgust among both the general public and the ruling class lies in Hyangris themselves and their wrongdoing. However, a different cause must have worked in the fact that there remain no documents or records favorable to them today. It can be partially explained by the fact that both the ruling class and the common people blamed Hyangris for the social and economic contradictions of the time. The central government showed horrendous lack of concern with the financial resources of local government after the 18th century, which drove local guns and hyeons toward chronic financial deficit. Local officials and Hyangris resorted to every means possible including legal and illegal to secure financial resources and resolve financial deficit. There were many reasons the general public was poverty-stricken and subject to illegitimate exploitations, and some of them include the nation's financial structure, decreasing paddies and dry fields, and climate changes. But common people must have held the biggest grudge against Hyangris that collected taxes, and the ruling class must have found them the ideal scapegoat to take blame for them. Today the academy is working on “democratization of memory” from the appearance of social history to that of women's history trying to alter the dominating memory of history through the resistance memories of the minor or marginal groups that were suppressed or forgotten in history. It's true that there are diverse memories of failure with putting Hyangris in history. We can make our history richer by integrating those memories and attempting to explain contradicting memories comprehensively. There is no more room for historical narration confined within a dichotomy of good and evil or true and false.

Hyangris, memory, prejudice, history education, historical discourse