Nourishing Life (yangsaeng) and Guarding Life (wisaeng) in the National Strengthening of Koreans, 1918–19

This paper argues that in the context of Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945), Koreans deployed Eastern medicine as a form of symbolic resistance to state attempts to impose rule through the rhetoric of hygiene and modernity. In 1918, the Chosŏn Medicine World journal reported that in the past few years the most significant development in medicine in Korea had been the huge uptake and popularity of “nourishing life” yangsaeng. While the decade starting from 1910 saw some uncertainty regarding the Eastern-medicine physicians and their status in Korea, the year 1919 saw a turn towards medicine as popular practice. Specifically, Koreans increasingly engaged in yangsaeng practice to benefit their own healthcare and to signal attachment to Eastern medical ideas. Continuing into the 1930s, Koreans framed Eastern medicine as a popular practice within which all could participate. Thus, the Eastern idea in medicine shifted from being a concern of physicians to one in which people could practice basic healthcare regimens and understand simple herbal therapies. The yangsaeng phenomenon in Korea in the late 1910s provides evidence of an unusual form of modernity in which Eastern-medicine physicians appropriated the language of Western science but reinterpreted it in local frameworks of understanding. While Koreans adopted yangsaeng, they did not also reject the wisaeng, but also did not accept it as the one explanatory model for either health or modernity, they demonstrated a confidence and pride in their explanation of health leading them to believe that their ideas and practice would make a contribution to world health. Despite being colonized during the 1910s, Korean Eastern-medicine physicians continued to insist that their beliefs would not only prevail but also develop and grow in popularity thereafter. Such resistance also shaped health practices in Japan.