The Jehol Diary

The Jehol Diary (Yeolha Ilgi) is a work by the Joseon dynasty silhak scholar Bak Jiwon, written in classical Chinese. Bak, also known by his pen name of Yeon'am (燕巖), made an extensive tour of what was then the northern territory of the Chinese Qing Empire, including Shenyang, Beijing and Rehe Province (formerly romanized as Jehol), in 1780, in the company of his cousin. Bak's cousin had been dispatched to the Qing imperial court by the Joseon king Jeongjo to attend the 70th birthday celebrations of the Qianlong Emperor.

The Yeolha Ilgi (the result of the trip) takes the form of a travelogue. However, the scope of the diary is vast, covering such disparate topics as history, customs, natural surroundings, politics, economics, and poetry. Both the scope of the work and the quality of its writing have earned it a place as a masterpiece and an important source for Chinese and Korean historians.^[1] A partial English translation was published in 2010 under the title The Jehol Diary.^[2]