Dae Jang Geum is set in the late 1400's and early 1500's. It takes place in Korea during the Joseon (Chosun) Dynasty. The story takes place around the capital city of Hanyang (Seoul) and also for some time the Cheju Island. I'll try to gather some historical information alluded to in the drama, although I don't claim this is accurate information, and instead of dismissing this page outright for its errors, try to leave constructive feedback instead. Translations are approximate and may not conform to any standards.
This post is only occasionally updated, but check back if you want. Last update at 10PM PST on August 25, 2005. There are spoilers in this post.
Hanseong/Hanyang:
Hanyang was the name for modern-day Seoul. It was also called Hanseong after the Joseon Dynasty took over. The name Seoul was a much older historical name for the city, and was reinstated after the end of the Japanese colonial period. The drama sometimes speaks of tigers, a reference to Siberian tigers that have long since disappeared from Korea but still lingered in tales. The Han River runs through Seoul, and that's where the historical names came from.
The name of Seoul remains in dispute even today. Whilst Seoul has been called exactly that for a century already, the Chinese continued to refer to it as "Hancheng" (Hanseong), which was a name with Chinese connotations. In addition, Hanseong literally means Han City, and may be interpreted wrongly by nationalists; Han being synonymous with China, Han City can be wrongly interpreted as "Chinese city" or "city that was once Chinese territory" or "city of a people that were once Chinese subjects" (c.f. the English word "niggardly").
The controversy escalated as the mayor of Seoul changed the official Chinese name of Seoul to "Shou'er". However, many Chinese continue to say "Hancheng" for various reasons (c.f. St Petersburg and Leningrad). One reason is that "Shou'er" sounds ugly and un-Chinese to some people, and other reasons revolve around tradition, habit, clarity, politics, nationalism, and so on.
Monarchs and Politics:
Two monarchs that reigned during this period were Yeonsang-gun (1476-1494, reign 1494-1506) and later King Jungjong (1488-1544, reign 1506-1544), who was Yeonsang-gun's half-brother.
Yeonsang-gun was overthrown in 1506 and replaced by King Jungjong. He was exiled and died a deposed king. Yeonsang-gun's rule was noted for its suppression of the Confucian intellectuals. He challenged the system and persecuted Confucians, but failed and was succeeded by King Jungjong who was put in place by Confucian supporters. Yeonsang-gun was thus seen by many as a tyrant, perhaps the worst tyrant ever in Korean history; Yeonsang-gun died on Ganghwa Island, to which he was exiled, a few months later. As you will see in the series, the yangban Confucians held considerable influence during Jungjong's reign; this was a backlash that rendered the king powerless.
King Jungjong in history was a benevolent king. However, he was too mild-tempered and weak for his position, and was thus easily manipulated by scheming officials. As he was more inclined to be a merciful king, he could not bring about stability in the country. However, the people loved him and his policies. In Dae Jang Geum, these facts about him are apparent and are echoed throughout the series. During this period, Korea was also harrassed on two sides by the Japanese and the Jurchens, and Jungjong's weak reign was therefore marked by its instability.
During Jungjong's reign, the Confucian yangban controlled the imperial bureaucracy and manipulated politics. King Jungjong, as mentioned above, was for the most part helpless about the court intrigue, because he wouldn't have become king in the first place without their support. On the other hand, Jungjong was forced to kill his own queen by these powerful officials, and even his queen and many of his concubines were actually their political puppets. This is an important aspect in Dae Jang Geum, because if the concubines and queen happen to give birth to a child, particularly if it's a male prince, it could influence the politics greatly for all players.
Another group of Confucians, known as the Shilin faction to which Jo Gwangjo belonged, tried to get King Jungjong to deal with these yangban, but the plan was foiled and many of them were either exiled or killed. This is an important background event in the series, and is a key point behind the hot spring incident in Dae Jang Geum.
The conflict between the two parties of Confucians is very significant in Korean history, so I will explain it a bit. One party is the group that was historically responsible for King Sejong the Great's ascension to the throne, and the descendants had thus been given tremendous power based on their meritorious services to the throne; I'll call them the Meritocrats. Many of them were yangban and landlords. The Shilin faction, on the other hand, were opposed to this group. During Jungjong's reign, Jo Gwangjo dominated the Shilin faction and tried to start radical reform. He failed, resulting in the 1519 Incident, where the Shilin faction suffered a tremendous setback. Many were killed, imprisoned, or exiled, including Jo himself. In 1521, an aftershock occured again, and even more Shilin scholars were purged.
King Sejong:
There are constant references in the drama to a King Sejong (Sejong Daewang) in the past. Sejong the Great was the fourth ruler of the Joseon Dynasty, and invented the Korean alphabet (Hangul). Prior to that, people used to write completely using Chinese characters (Hanja), and that is not really intuitive as Korean as a language is grammatically different from Chinese. Sejong's invention led to a definite increase in literacy, but the conservative Confucian intellectuals objected to this new script. Thus, in Dae Jang Geum, you will see that official documents are still written in Chinese, whilst personal letters are composed in Hangul, mostly by females.
Hangul and Hanja:
Hangul is the native Korean alphabet, whilst the Hanja are the equivalent of the Japanese Kanji and the Chinese Hanzi. They are Chinese characters, and during those days Hanja were written in Classical Chinese, which was the literary written language of China. Note that Classical Chinese was purely a written language, and was thus quite archaic. When it was read out loud, it was done in local dialects. Its status is much like Ecclesiastical Latin, which was a language artificially "frozen in time" by the Catholic church, and read out loud with local pronunciations and accents.
In Dae Jang Geum, as in history, most documents are still written in Hanja. The three characters given to Suh by the monk in episode one were Chinese characters. The imperial decrees are written in Hanja. The words the palace girls are studying are Chinese characters. Public bulletins are written in Hanja, for example the wanted posters early on in the series. Hangul was not a prestigious form of writing. Only in the 20th century did Hangul replace Hanja.
Reader crzwdjk said,
Random other facts about the Hangul script: the legend goes that the whole thing came to King Sejong in a dream, but probably he was just a very clever guy, and he managed to make a very clever script. It really is one of the easiest alphabets to learn. It was introduced, and then the aformentioned confucian intellectuals got a bit afraid of what would happen if people became literate, so it was discouraged if not banned. Besides, it was too easy to use, it was writing for women and children and stupid people. Real Men used characters, the more complex the better. This persisted until the early 1900's when Japan won Korea in the Ruso-Japanese war, and occupied it. It was certainly not a happy time for Korea, and is a source of lingering resentment against the Japanese, but they did re-introduce the use of Hangul. Their version was similar to the way Japanese is written, and had the main nouns and verbs and such as characters, and the grammar-syllables like suffixes and particles in Hangul. After the Japanese left, they switched to using Hangul almost exclusively, so characters are now rarely seen, and are more of a historical thing.
The random side-note to this random side-note is that if the Russians hadn't been incompetent and lost the Ruso-Japanese war, then Korea might well have been a Russian territory instead of a Japanese on, and instead of Hangul, korean would be written in cyrillic, which is a pretty weird concept.
Note that historians tend to agree that King Sejong probably did not invent the script all by himself, but most likely with a committee.
Japan:
Japan was in the middle of the Sengoku Period, but warlords and Japanese pirates (wakō) could still threaten the coastal areas and the islands under Korean control. They were a large threat, but not as significant as they would later become. In the late 1500's, Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified Japan and invaded Korea, and that was when Japan became a major threat. This goes beyond the scope of the story, so is not of much importance here.
However, the Three-Ports Incident (translation not verified) is a notable historical event. To deal with the wakō, the Joseon Dynasty tried to impose stricter trading laws on the Japanese residents from Tsushima and Iki-jima in three southern Korean ports: Pusan, Jinhae, and Ulsan. This caused wide dissent amongst the Japanese as trading was their livelihood. An uprising started in 1510, aided by the Soo clan from Tsushima, but was crushed by Korean forces. The Japanese residents in Korea were banished, and Japan and Korea remained hostile to each other until the year 1512, when trade officially resumed with Tsushima.
Some of the Japanese invaders in this drama are said to be from the island of
Tsushima. Their leader would be the warlord, Soo Haruyasu (1475-1563), who unified the 38 Soo fiefs on Tsushima as a
sengoku daimyō.
China:
The Ming Dynasty ruled China around that period. It seems that Korea was regarded as a protectorate at that time in both countries. A few clues in the drama demonstrate this attitude: 1) the Ming representatives often have outrageous behaviours in
Dae Jang Geum; 2) the king's selected heir needs the Ming Dynasty's approval; 3) serving the Ming representatives is a task no one apparently wants to take.
The
Yellow Turban Rebellion (also called
Yellow Scarves Rebellion), called The
War of Hwanggeonjeok in the series:
This is a historical reference from the words on the wine bottles delivered to Prince Jinsung who is to become King Jungjong in
Dae Jang Geum. This rebellion took place in China, near the end of the Han Dynasty in the late 2nd century, and was started by peasants who wore yellow scarves around their heads. One slogan used by the rebels was "Cangtian yisi, Huangtian dangli; sui zai jiazi, tianxia daji". It's roughly something like "The heavens (i.e. Han) are already dead, so the Yellow Heaven (reference to the yellow scarves) to come ought to be enthroned; the time is the year of Jiazi (184 A.D.), and all under heaven shall be/is auspicious". The message was written by Zhang Jiao (Korean: Jang Gak), the mastermind behind the rebels.
The secret code presented to Jungjong says, "Keum chun gi sa, hyun chun dang wi" in Korean, which is based on the first two Chinese sentences from the rebels' slogan but with the initial character of each sentence changed to mean "Today (reference to Yeonsang-gun) is dead, and Hyun (Jungjong) shall be king."
The rebellion was ultimately crushed, but it shook the foundation of the frail Han Dynasty and eventually led to the Three Kingdoms period. Click
here to see the extent of the rebellion (look at the area marked in yellow).
Zhuge Liang, Cao Cao, and Liu Bei:
These three Chinese historical figures from the Three Kingdoms period (in the 3rd century) are referred to occasionally in
Dae Jang Geum. In episode four, for example, there is a question regarding Cao Cao's campaign in Hanzhong (a place in central China, in modern-day southwest Shaanxi).
During the Three Kingdoms period, China was divided into three kingdoms: the kingdom of Wei, in northern China under Cao Cao; the kingdom of Shu, in central and southwestern China under Liu Bei; and the kingdom of Wu, in southeastern China under Sun Quan. The three kingdoms fought against one another, for the most part Shu and Wu united against Wei. It is one of the most well-known periods of Chinese history, and is a source of inspiration for many (c.f. the Classical Chinese novel,
Romance of the Three Kingdoms).
Zhuge Liang is still regarded today as the wisest military commander, diplomat, and domestic minister in Chinese history. He is traditionally a symbol of wisdom and ingenuity in East Asia, and served faithfully as Liu Bei's chief advisor and, after Liu's death, the kingdom's prime minister.
It is said that Zhuge, when leading a campaign against the southern barbarians, was trying to cross a river, but the weather was too severe. The local traditions in that region demanded that forty-nine sacrifices be beheaded and their heads be offered to appease the spirits of the dead and stop the storm. According to legend, Zhuge invented the
mantou (steamed bun) to replace the sacrificial ritual and to fool the spirits. Eventually,
mantou became the staple food of northern China and spread all over the world.
The Xia Dynasty and King Jie:
In episode five, Gang Duk-Gu makes a reference to a King Gul (King Jie in Chinese) from China.
King Jie is generally considered a great tyrant. He was the last king of the legendary Xia Dynasty, and was overthrown by Tang, who founded the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC).
The idea that he only ate the right front paws of bears is probably to show his extravagance.
Government and administration:
Translations here may vary significantly from scholarly sources, but this section should explain the basic idea.
A centralized government system based on the Chinese
jiupin zhongzheng (nine-rank system) is in use in
Dae Jang Geum and during the Joseon Dynasty. Basically, government offices are divided into nine grades, and this simple chart would help explain it: 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, 6a, 6b, 7a, 7b, 8a, 8b, 9a, 9b (A and B being
Jung and
Jong in Korean). Grade 1a is the highest, and grade 9b the lowest. In particular, 3a is also divided into upper-court 3a and lower-court 3a. Officials from 1a to upper-court-3a are called Upper Court Officials, Officials from lower-court 3b to 7a are called Lower Court Officials or Upper Staff Officials. The others are Lower Staff Officials. According to
Dae Jang Geum, high palace ladies (
sanggung) are at 5a. It was not possible for women to get past that, except for the royalty or consorts of the king.
The system was established in 1469 in the Joseon Dynasty. Whilst the names of various offices might change as time went on, the system as a whole did not deviate too much from its original form throughout the Joseon Dynasty.
Under the king, there was an advising body -- a senate of sorts. The head of the senate would be a figure similar to the Prime Minister. Below him, there were the right and left ministers; all three of them would be at 1a, which was the highest status officials could attain. Further below them were left and right advisors and consultants, each pair at 1b and 2a.
Under the senate, there were six ministries: the census ministry, which conducted censuses and collected taxes; the investiture ministry, which formally conferred titles and decided on the designation of offices; the ceremony ministry, which was in charge of official ceremonies and diplomatic negotiations; the military ministry, which was in charge of defence, appointment of military posts, and allocation of military forces; the manufacturing ministry, which was in charge of government construction; and the judicial ministry, which was responsible for law enforcement, criminal investigations, judicial rulings, as well as jails and work camps. The two ministers overseeing these ministries as a whole were at 2a and 2b.
As for the country, it was historically divided into eight provinces (
do). The list goes as follows: Chungchong, Gangwon, Gyeonggi (where Hanseong was located), Gyeongsang, Hamgyong, Hwanghae, Jeolla, and Pyong'an (Pyongyang).
Court Ladies:
This diagram from episode 4 in
Dae Jang Geum should explain a lot. This is the plain version:
This one should explain everything:
Every position from 1a to 4b on this chart is one of the king's consorts. The sanggung (the ones wearing the wigs, addressed as "madams") are at 5a.
Dae Jang Geum's Royal Kitchen:
This is a bit hard to explain, so I'll just use pictures from the drama instead.
It might be a bit confusing that there's a "Highest Kitchen Lady" who is actually below the "Head Lady" in status.
Highest Kitchen Lady:
Head Lady:
As far as my understanding goes, the Head Lady is in charge of administrative duties in various residences in the palace, whilst the Highest Kitchen Lady is only in charge of the royal palace. At various points in the drama, it is hinted that the Head Lady actually meddles in affairs she is not supposed to involve herself with.
Important/Memorable Quotations (Major spoilers):Translations based on the DVD and localized versions, paraphrased where possible to reduce the Engrish.
"
I believe that food shouldn't be used as a means for something else whatsoever ... I want to set that straight as I leave the palace. That is my only wish before I die." --Lady Jung to Lady Han
"
Become the Highest Kitchen Lady of the Royal Palace, Jang-geum, and write down my grievances in the secret document that's passed down ... But it is your choice to make. If you don't want to be a court lady, or you don't become the Highest Kitchen Lady, you must not read [my letter]
, or show or tell others about it." -- Jang-geum's mother to Jang-geum
"
He's not a baekjeong [butcher or slave, lowest social class in Joseon Korea]
! My father's not a lowly baekjeong! He's a military officer who protects the King! My father is not a baekjeong... He's an officer of the Royal Militia." --Jang-geum to crowd
"
No, I can't leave my friend out here." --Keum-young to Lady Choi
"
