Philosopher's teachings stand as a testament to the enduring intellectual and artistic affinity, creating a bond for China and South Korea, Zhao Xu reports.
Musicians perform at a Confucian ritual at Jongmyo Shrine, the royal ancestral shrine of the Joseon Dynasty, in Seoul. KIM JAE-HWAN/SOPA IMAGES
'The autumn wind sighs soft and thin, no kindred soul to share within. Rain taps the pane in midnight's hue, my heart drifts far — where dreams are true."
Sometime in the latter half of the ninth century, Korean poet Choe Chi-won (known in China as Cui Zhiyuan, 857 to early 10th century) composed these lines in classical Chinese during his long sojourn in China's Tang Dynasty (618-907).
Belonging to the late Unified Silla period (668-935), Choe is revered as one of the founding figures of the Korean Peninsula's Confucian scholarly tradition, which would later blossom in the Goryeo (918-1392) and Joseon (1392-1910) dynasties.
He came to embody the ideal of a Confucian intellectual — a figure of integrity, learning and patriotic devotion — with his "drifting heart" perhaps reaching toward his homeland more than 1,000 kilometers away.
The poem was composed while Choe served as a county commandant in Lishui, part of today's Nanjing, in eastern China's Jiangsu province. He spent many years studying in China and, through rigorous examination, attained the jinshi degree — the highest level of the Tang imperial civil service exams — qualifying him to take up an official post and marking his mastery of classical learning.
In 958, just a few decades after Choe's death, the Goryeo Dynasty introduced the Gwageo system, modeled after China's imperial examinations, which were established during the Sui Dynasty (581-618). Similar to its Chinese counterpart, it aimed to select officials based on merit rather than birth, helping the Goryeo consolidate control over the peninsula.
After returning from China in 884, Choe sought to revive the declining Silla kingdom through Confucian principles by advocating for the strengthening of the monarchy, the curtailment of aristocratic abuses, and merit-based appointments to address corruption, improve military organization, and enhance civil governance.
Although his reforms largely went unheeded, Choe's efforts and writings left a lasting legacy, shaping the intellectual and moral foundations of later Confucian bureaucracy on the Korean Peninsula, including that of Goryeo, which ultimately ended Silla's rule in 935.
Descendants of Zhu Xi in South Korea attend a ceremony commemorating the 888th anniversary of Zhu Xi's birth held in Wuyishan, Fujian province, in 2018. ZHANG LIJUN/CHINA NEWS SERVICE
Echoes still felt today
"Confucianism forged a profound cultural alignment between the ancient Korean Peninsula and China, giving rise to a resonance whose echoes are still felt today," says Zhu Renqiu, a philosophy professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province.
Zhu, who has spent decades researching the spread of Confucianism across East Asia, is a descendant of Zhu Xi (1130-1200), one of China's most influential philosophers, whose interpretations of the Confucian classics shaped education, governance and moral culture throughout imperial China for centuries.
According to Zhu Renqiu, Zhu Xi's philosophy, known as Neo-Confucianism, explored the moral structure of the universe and the cultivation of the self.
He argued that human nature and the nature of things share the same underlying principle, though only humans can act upon it. While the Four Beginnings — compassion, shame, deference and a sense of right and wrong — arise from principle, the Seven Emotions — joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, dislike and desire — stem from material force and must be guided by principle.
Central to his thought was the nature of the mind, which unites principle and material force; moral cultivation, he maintained, requires investigation (gewu) to understand principle and purify the mind.
"These concepts, introduced to the Korean Peninsula by the distinguished scholar An Hyang, sparked debate among Korean thinkers for the next 500 years," Zhu Renqiu says.
A copy of Zhuzi Jiali on display at a museum in Hefei, Anhui province. [Photo provided to CHINA DAILY]
In 1289, An Hyang accompanied the crown prince of the Goryeo Dynasty on a journey to Beijing, the capital of China's Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). While returning home the following year, he took with him a hand-copied version of Zhu Xi's vast collection of writings.
"It marked the beginning of a new intellectual chapter for his homeland," Zhu Renqiu adds.
At Sungkyunkwan — the highest educational institution of the time, whose former site in Seoul is now home to Sungkyunkwan University — An Hyang instructed his disciples in Confucian classics, on which they would later be examined to qualify for government service.
"At Sungkyunkwan, the coexistence of the Myeongnyundang (Hall of Ethics) as a school and the Daeseongjeon (Hall of Great Achievement) as a Confucian shrine symbolized this unity: while one trained minds, the other anchored their spiritual world in the ideals of Confucianism," says Lim Tae-seung, professor at the Academy of East Asian Studies at Sungkyunkwan University.
Reflecting on Zhu Xi's influence, Lim highlights Zhuzi Jiali (The Family Rituals of Zhu Xi), a manual compiled to codify Confucian rites for private households, which included weddings, funerals, ancestral sacrifices and coming-of-age ceremonies.
A portrait of venerated scholar Yi Hwang. [Photo provided to CHINA DAILY]
"In everyday life (during the Joseon period), the ritual ethics of Zhu Xi's thought penetrated every household. The sum of these family laws became tradition," he says, adding that "all Confucian teachings (adopted by Joseon Korea) were interpreted through Zhu Xi's lens. Even Confucius himself was understood as the Confucius defined by Zhu Xi".
"In Joseon, Confucianism was both a creed and a synonym for 'China' (Zhonghua), which, at that time, referred specifically to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The civil service examination linked Confucian learning, the scholar-official system and politics into a single integrated structure, with the Ming Dynasty as its model," says Lim, noting that during the Joseon era, Seowon — a type of private Confucian academy — was both a center of learning and a base of political factions and partisan conflict, which in turn partly stemmed from disagreements over scholarly interpretations (of Confucian classics).
According to Lim, who previously pursued his PhD studies at Peking University, the peak of Confucian scholarship on the Korean Peninsula came around the 16th century. Two of its most representative figures, Yi Hwang (Toegye, 1501-70) and Yi I (Yulgok, 1536-84) — venerated Confucian scholars of the Joseon period — are honored today with their portraits on South Korean banknotes.
It's also worth mentioning that Yi I's mother, Shin Saimdang (more commonly known as Saimdang), was a respected Confucian scholar highly skilled in ink-and-brush painting and calligraphy, whose portrait is also on South Korean banknotes.
"Literati art embraced by a Confucian scholar — from poetry to painting and calligraphy — spread from ancient China to the Korean Peninsula," says Gao Jie, a researcher at the Nanjing Museum.
Earlier this year, the museum hosted an exhibition examining cultural and economic exchanges between China and the wider world during the Ming Dynasty. On display were poems composed by a Ming envoy, alongside responsive works by his Joseon scholar hosts — writings whose literary merit clearly impressed the envoy.
Rendered in elegant Chinese calligraphy and presented as a continuous handscroll, the collection stands as a testament to the enduring intellectual and artistic affinity between the two cultures, both of which "revolved within the orbit of Confucian thought", to quote Lim.
Asked how Confucianism, as developed on the Korean Peninsula, came to exert influence on Chinese thinkers, Zhu Renqiu says: "As South Korea's economy surged in the 1970s, Confucian values — collectivism, respect for education and strong family bonds — came to be seen not as obstacles to modernization but as its driving forces, with scholars on both sides deeply engaged in the question: Did Confucian culture play a role in East Asia's economic success?"
The turmoil experienced by China and the Korean Peninsula in the late 19th and early 20th centuries compelled scholars from both places to reexamine Confucianism's relevance. Today, in China and South Korea, scholars have continued to explore how this ancient philosophy might adapt — and still speak — to the modern age. Their efforts, though often separate, have unfolded in parallel, mirroring each other across time and circumstance.
Officials unveil a statue of Korean poet Choe Chi-won in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, in 2007. CUI JIAMING/CHINA NEWS SERVICE
Tradition's dual legacy
Arguing that Confucianism has historically provided both ancient Chinese and Korean societies with a "unity of purpose" and imposed "constraints", Lim believes scholars in China and South Korea should now "reexamine the tradition's dual legacy — its liberating and limiting dimensions" — to "preserve and refine the humanistic ideals that once offered moral guidance and social cohesion".
In recent years, Confucian organizations in both countries have increasingly engaged in dialogue. Chinese administrators and scholars of Confucian temples have visited South Korea to study the operations of hyanggyo — former local Confucian schools that now serve as cultural institutions and tourist sites.
Meanwhile, South Korean Confucian scholars have traveled to Qufu in Shandong province, the birthplace of Confucius, for ritual exchanges and ceremonies. This renewed interaction reflects a shared recognition of Confucianism's enduring significance and its potential to foster cross-cultural understanding across East Asia and beyond.
A statue of Confucius stands in Qufu, Shandong province. ZHAO DI/FOR CHINA DAILY
In 869, 12-year-old Choe arrived in China and, as Lim explains, this decision reflected Silla's rigidly hierarchical society — Choe, despite his talent, was not of royal lineage and sought to overcome social barriers by studying in China.
"A wave of Silla students was already heading to Tang," Lim notes. "In 837, 216 traveled to China. Those who had studied in Tang were considered elite, with a near-guaranteed path to official careers upon returning to Silla."
Returning home many years later, Choe encountered the same rigid social hierarchies, yet he persevered. "At that time, Silla had only recently embraced Buddhism, while Confucianism and Taoism remained largely unfamiliar. Drawing selectively from China's diverse philosophical traditions, Choe developed ideas compatible with Silla customs and articulated a coherent intellectual system for his homeland. Remarkably, he synthesized Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism — sometimes mutually critical — into a unified framework, an accomplishment made possible precisely because he was not born into any of these traditions, but encountered them as an outsider studying in China," Lim says.
Sungkyunkwan University students dressed in traditional attire participate in a ceremony at the Myeongnyundang in Seoul. YONHAP NEWS AGENCY
Before he left for China, his father gave Choe a stern warning: If he did not pass the imperial examination within 10 years, he would cease to be his son. Choe accomplished that goal and went far beyond it, emerging as both a Confucian sage and a literary master of classical Chinese, whose talents earned recognition across borders.
In 884, 27-year-old Choe finally bade farewell to his adopted home with a poem.
"My eyes sweep the endless mist and tide. At dawn, where crows take wing, my home I spied," he wrote.
"Years spent afar have streaked my temples white. Yet, the journey back begins to smooth my care."
