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영어

This article discussed the 1881 Official Observation Group(朝士視察團) sent to Meiji Japan in 1881. Among those group’s data, Tokyo Diary(東京日記) was widely known because it was transcribed by Song Hun-Bin’s nephew Song Sin-Yong and not a few examples of it were imprinted relatively early in the 1940's, but it did not reach the full-scale analysis. In this article, we investigated the background and composition of Tokyo Diary by examining how Song Hun-Bin, an attendant of the official[朝士] Lee Won-Hoe, participated in the event, and reviewed the way he visited modern Japan. First, Song Hun-Bin served as an assistant member of Lee Won-Hoe in charge of manufacturing weapons and military inspection, and shared his inspection records with Lee Won-Hoe. This suggests Tokyo Diary inherits the traditional writing style of Chosun Dynasty. The Tokyo Diary consists of a diary in the first half and the miscellaneous chapters in the second half. The miscellaneous part is similar to the character of the Moongyunbyulrok(聞見別錄), and served to help write the report of the survey beyond simply sharing one's own experience. Unlike the Chosŏn missions to Japan[通信使] who had traveled all over Japanese provinces, they only traveled through large cities by modern trains and steamships. In addition, this article revealed the places where Song Hun-Bin and his party visited and the people they met. They mainly visited military-related facilities and met Army-related figures. Especially, Song Hun-Bin actively visited the country to extend his stride to outside of Tokyo, and positively evaluated modern culture and systems while visiting educational, cultural and industrial facilities as well as military and weapons-related visits. He also showed a favorable attitude toward Japan, and tried to recognize the limits of written conversation[筆談], which was a means of Chinese civilization, in exchange with the Japanese and sought a new relationship.