The Eye of the Imjin Storm –Chosŏn Ambassadors’ Accounts of the Failed Peace Mission to Japan

In 1596, Chosŏn ambassadors Hwang Shin 黃愼 (1560-1617) and Pak Hongjang 朴弘長 (1558-1598) joined the ill-fated mission to Japan to invest Hideyoshi as King of Japan and restore peace to the region. Hwang Shin’s diary is an important historical source for the breakdown of the peace negotiations, which resulted in the devastating invasion of 1597. The ambassadors’ diaries also give detailed accounts of the alien country and the people who had visited such destruction on their homeland and yet were so little understood by people in Korea. Hwang’s diary particularly compares cultural norms and values in China, Korea, and Japan, revealing in the process what he thought about these countries and their places in the world.