Waegwan

• Japanese/Korean: 倭館 (wakan / waegwan)

The Wakan (K: Waegwan, "Japan Hall" or "Japan House") was an establishment in Pusan which served as housing and a base of operations for officials from Tsushima engaging in relations with the royal government of Joseon Dynasty Korea.

The institution was established in 1443, alongside the establishment of special privileges for the Sô samurai clan of Tsushima as the preeminent Japanese with whom the Koreans would engage in trade and diplomacy (as intermediaries representing the shogun). In 1512, following a naval clash in 1510 between Sô and Joseon ships in which the former were supporting a Japanese traders' and fishermen's protest, Tsushima's representatives in Korea were restricted to the Wakan while in Korea.

Relations between Korea and Japan shut down entirely as a result of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea in the 1590s, but were later restored. The walled complex, at that time large enough to house roughly 500 Japanese officials and merchants, reopened in 1607. Official trade took place in the course of ritual diplomatic interactions, as the representatives of the Sô clan, as vassals of the Korean king, received formal seals reaffirming their trade monopoly, and exchanged tribute goods for gifts. Goods presented to the king by the Sô often included pepper, alum, and sappanwood obtained from Southeast Asia via Nagasaki, as well as water buffalo horn, copper, and tin. In return, they received ginseng and considerable amounts of cotton; from the mid-17th century onwards, the Sô also received roughly 8300 koku of rice annually, an important source of food for both samurai officials and commoners & peasants of the domain, which only produced itself about 20,000 koku. The more significant portion of trade for the Japanese, however, was private trade, conducted by merchants from Tsushima engaging with officially authorized Korean merchants at a particular designated market just outside the Wakan. The overall size of this trade was limited by the Korean authorities to a certain number of ships a year (initially 50, reduced to 25 after 1512), and to only certain market days each month, but still constituted a significant volume of trade. The chief goods the Japanese sought in Korea were ginseng, and Chinese silks.

References

• Robert Hellyer, Defining Engagement, Harvard University Press (2009), 39-40.

See Also

• Ryukyu-kan, a similar set of institutions for Ryûkyû Kingdom officials in Fuzhou and Kagoshima