page_title: Choe Bu
section_title: Southern China
hierarchical_section_title: Choe Bu / A castaway in China, 1488 / Southern China
caption_attribution_description: The Liuhe Pagoda of Hangzhou, China, built by 1165 during the Song Dynasty of medieval China. Author: Patrick T. Morgan, Date: From my personal files during a June 2007 trip to Hangzhou.
context_page_description: Choe Bu was a Korean official during the early Joseon Dynasty. He is most well known for the account of his shipwrecked travels in China from February to July 1488, during the Ming dynasty. He was eventually banished from the Joseon court in 1498 and executed in 1504 during two political purges. However, in 1506 he was exonerated and given posthumous honors by the Joseon court.
  Choe's diary accounts of his travels in China became widely printed during the 16th century in both Korea and Japan. Modern historians also refer to his written works, since his travel diary provides a unique outsider's perspective on Chinese culture in the 15th century. The attitudes and opinions expressed in his writing represent in part the standpoints and views of the 15th century Confucian Korean literati, who viewed Chinese culture as compatible with and similar to their own. His description of cities, people, customs, cuisines, and maritime commerce along China's Grand Canal provides insight into the daily life of China and how it differed between northern and southern China during the 15th century.
context_section_description: While serving his post in Jeju as the Commissioner of Registers for the island, a family slave from Naju arrived on February 12, 1488 to alert Choe that his father had died. In keeping with his Confucian values, Choe prepared to leave his post immediately and begin the period of mourning for the loss of his father. However, while setting sail for mainland Korea with a crew of 43 Koreans, Choe's ship was blown far off course during a violent storm that lasted 14 days, his ship aimlessly drifting off towards China until reaching the Chinese coast off of Taizhou, Zhejiang, near Ningbo. Before reaching the shores of Zhejiang, Choe wrote on the fifth day of his travel at sea during the storm:
  This day a dense fog obscured everything. Things a foot away could not be made out. Towards evening, rain streamed down heavily, abating somewhat with night. The frightening waves were like mountains. They would lift the ship up into the blue sky and then drop it as if down an abyss. They billowed and crashed, the noise splitting heaven from earth. We might all be drowned and left to rot at any moment.
  Upon the urging of his crewmen, Choe changed his clothes in a ritual fashion in preparation for death, although he prayed to the heavens to spare him and his crew, asking what sins they had committed to deserve this fate. On the sixth day, during fairer weather, their ship came upon a group of islands in the Yellow Sea where Chinese pirates were moored. The pirates robbed their ship of spare goods and rations, threw away the Koreans' oars and anchor, and left them to drift aimlessly into the sea.
  Although it was still raining heavily, Choe's crew spotted a near-deserted strip of Zhejiang coastline on February 28. Almost immediately, his ship was surrounded by six Chinese boats, the crews of which did not attempt to board Choe's ship until the following day. Although he could not speak Chinese, Choe was able to communicate with the Chinese by using their written character system in what was dubbed "brush conversations". Through writing, he questioned these Chinese sailors on how far the nearest official road and courier route was. When given three different estimates of the distance from there to the Taizhou prefectural capital, Choe was convinced that his hosts were deceiving him; historian Timothy Brook notes that it was more likely ignorance and inexperience of traveling inland than mere deception on behalf of the Chinese sailors. Regardless, the Chinese sailors began robbing the Korean ship of its remaining goods, convinced that they were Japanese pirates. When heavy rains inundated the region once more, the Chinese sailors returned to their ships; Choe's party, fearing for their lives should the sailors board their ship again, saw this as an opportune moment and made a dash for the shore under cover of rain. After traveling several days overland looking for the nearest courier route, Choe's party was found by Chinese authorities and taken to Taizhou Battalion. Like in the previous incident with the Chinese sailors and villagers along the shore, the Koreans were almost killed when they were first encountered by Chinese soldiers. Employing his wit and intellect in these dangerous confrontations of being misconstrued as a coastal pirate, Choe avoided disaster for him and his crew.
  The battalion commander at Taizhou ordered his officer Zhai Yong to escort Choe Bu's Korean party to the regional command centre at Shaoxing on March 6. From there they could be transferred to provincial authorities at Hangzhou and finally to the empire's capital of Beijing where the party could be officially escorted back to Korea. Choe Bu and his officers were carried in sedan chairs, an accommodation provided by the Taizhou Battalion, although in spots of rough terrain Choe Bu and his officers were forced to walk on foot like the others.
  The battalion troops escorting Choe and his Korean party reached Jiantiao Battalion on March 8; on the next day, they travelled by boat across Sanmen Bay to reach the Yuexi Police Station and Post House. On March 10, the part
caption: The Liuhe Pagoda of Hangzhou, built by 1165 during the Song dynasty
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