WEBZINE NORTHEAST ASIAN HISTORY FOUNDATION

The third term of Xi Jinping, the status and forecast of education in China 20th CPC Congress Report and education policies The People's Daily reported the results of the recent survey on catchphrases in January 2023. According to the report, the most popular phrase in 2022 was the “20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China ("20th CPC Congress")”. The 20th CPC Congress was held in Beijing from Oct. 14 to Oct. 22, 2022. Through the Congress, President Xi Jinping secured the third term as the paramount leader. It was taken for granted that the phrase Chinese were most interested in would be “20th CPC Congress” as the media reports were mostly about the 20th CPC Congress. President Xi Jinping presented development strategies of China divided into 14 categories in the report to the 20th CPC Congress. Among them, education, the toll for nurturing future generations, could be critical in gauging the direction of the future of China. Xi Jinping stated in the report that “We must nurture a new generation who will take on the big mission of national revival and the Party and deepen education on patriotism, groupism, and socialism while intensely expanding promotion and education on the core values of socialism.” Thus, the direction of education policies of the Chinese government can be forecasted when we review the 20th CPC Congress Report and related coverage by the Chinese media.

Woo Sung-min, Researcher at NAHF International Relations and Historical Dialogue Research Institute

Traces of Geomundo Island and Chodo Island in Ulleungdo Island and Dokdo There is a section in the “Nature of Dokdo” exhibition hall in the Dokdo Museum Seoul(run by the Northeast Asian History Foundation) that introduces the ocean currents of the sea surrounding Korea. According to the description of the exhibition, people from Geomundo Island and Jeju haenyeo (women divers) went to Ulleungdo Island and Dokdo for fishery activities such as making ships and collecting seaweeds. The residents of Geomundo Island were skilled at sailing and went to Ulleungdo Island to collect seaweeds even before the reclamation policy of Ulleungdo Island in 1882. We can learn about this from the 1962 interview with Kim Yun-sam published on the Minguk Ilbo and a monument for Jeju haenyeo. The monument was erected to commemorate the contribution of haenyeo who went to Ulleungdo Island and Dokdo to harvest sea life from the ocean. From Apr. 27 to 30, I visited Yeosu, Chodo Island, and Geomundo Island to find their relativity with Ulleungdo Island and Dokdo along with the employees of the Dokdo Museum Seoul.

Jeong Eun-jeong, director of NAHF Dokdo Museum Seoul

Ruling policies of the Governor-General of Joseon History based on existential values In What is History?, Edward Hallett Carr(1892-1082) said that history is “an unending dialogue between the present and the past.” The reason this quote is famous until today is because it emphasizes that history is a discernment to have an insight on issues people currently face and rejects positivism that views history as a faithful representation of the past. Carr also said in the same book that “There is nothing more meaningfully indicative of the character of a society than whether a society writes or fails to write about a certain historical facts.” These writings about history of this historian inspire us to look back on the three East Asian countries, Korea, China, and Japan, particularly focusing on the historical issues and perception of history between Korea and Japan.

Jeon Sang-suk, Research Professor, East Asia Research Institute, Kwangwoon University

Focusing on timely topics at the AAS Annual Conference March 2023 in Boston, MA, US The 2023 Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference was held from Mar. 16 to 19 in Boston, Massachusetts, US. Attendants of this year’s annual conference were provided with AAS 2020 conference bags as the 2020 annual conference in Boston was canceled unexpectedly due to COVID-19. The annual conference in Boston, held after the COVID-19 pandemic, had 3,475 attendants registered and research outcomes in Asian studies were shared over the four days at panels and meetings.

Park Jang-bae, Research Fellow at NAHF Korea-China Relations History Research Institute

Sharing the layers of history and Korean studies research at the 2023 Annual Conference AAS Annual Conference The Association for Asian Studies(AAS) is the largest Asian studies research association in the world established in 1941, and the AAS Secretariat is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, US. The AAS holds annual conferences for three to four days in the US and the scale of these conferences is massive. Over 50% of panels among the applicants are eliminated in the review process and there are hundreds of panels that pass the review with more than 3,000 researchers. More than 3,000 researchers around the world gather in one place through the AAS Annual Conference for presentations to share their latest research outcomes and opportunities to directly interact with researchers from overseas academic circles. The AAS Annual Conference is the best academic conference that contributes to sharing and spreading Asian studies, and networking.

Gu Do-yeong, Researcher of NAHF Research Institute for Korean Ancient and Medieval History

Food and style of the Goguryeo people with siru The goguryeo people gained energy from “bapsim” There is a common saying that Koreans gain energy by “bapsim,” the power of rice. As such, rice is indisputably staple food for Koreans. In order for them to eat well every meal, they had to cook rice well with grains. To do so, “siru (steamer)” was used in Goguryeo. Siru is a cooking utensil that was often used in the Gojoseon period that is effective in cooking various ingredients by supplying abundant steam and heat. Siru cooked grains evenly while preventing earthy scent to permeate into rice from cooking with pottery cookware. It was frequently used before gamasot (Korean traditional pot) became popular. The mural of the kitchen in Anak Tomb No. 3 includes scenes that seem to portray Goguryeo people cooking rice with siru(Figure 1). The women in the kitchen are starting a fire in the agungi(Korean traditional firebox), arranging the dishware, and using a spatula to stir inside the siru coupled with a caldron. Among them, the woman with a spatula seems to be mixing the top and bottom of the rice before serving rice or steaming for the rice to be cooked evenly. The reason the cooking equipment on top of the buttumak (where a cauldron is placed) is identified as a siru is because of the red line on top of the fire inside the agungi below the vessels connected to the siru(Figure 2). The Goguryeo people used siru in various ways to make different food. Accordingly, the size or shape of the bottom holes varied. Holes on the bottom of the excavated siru varied from small uniformed holes in size and numbers that were densely pierced or had large holes(Figure 3). It is presumed that the Goguryeo people consumed a considerable amount of rice at their meals and the size of the bowls excavated at various historical sites supports this presumption. The size of bowls they used was substantial and the amount of rice at each meal in these bowls was significantly more than what today’s adults consume(Figure 4). Goguryeo originally had a “custom to eat food sparingly” but the amount of food the Goguryeo people ate revealed by their bowls demonstrates why the word “bapsim” was formed.

Park Yu-mi, Instructor at the Division of Liberal Arts and Science, Korean National Sport University

Lunar New Year (seollal) in Korea and Chinese New Year (chūnjié) in China Korea and China are neighboring countries that are geographically close and have had close relationships politically, culturally, and historically. Specifically, they formed a common culture of Confucian culture and Chinese character culture and maintained a framework of agricultural culture based on the same calendar. In this aspect, the two countries shared cultural homogeneity in many ways. However, there are also distinctive cultural characteristics depending on the lifestyle of the nation and the mindset of the community. The most representative of this is their holidays. The terms or the framework of holidays in both countries are fundamentally similar as they have semantic time units based on the same calendar. But the actual aspects of the holidays are very different and their meanings are often not identical. Koreans refer to the first day of the year as “seol” and the Chinese refer to this day as “chūnjié.” What are the similarities and differences in the first holidays of the new year between the two countries?

Jang Jang-sik, Head of the Ghil Institute of Cultural Heritage

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