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영어

In 1687, a man calling himself Yu Yŏlli was discovered begging from the common people of Chido garrison in Chŏlla Province by pretending to be a Chinese castaway. Although the Chosŏn court eventually established that he was lying, it took a full month to come to this conclusion, despite what seems at times to have been a very flimsily constructed identity on Yu’s part. This article argues that he succeeded because he effectively reproduced the established Ming Loyalist narrative of the Chosŏn court, and also because of his initial location in the unstable and uncertain world of the southwestern islands. His lies, for this reason, are very useful for understanding the ideological presuppositions of late Chosŏn society.