Drawing on an essay by Masayuki Takayama, this chapter challenges the idealized image of the Korean envoys, portraying them instead as people who came to take back Japanese techniques, objects, and even stolen goods.
Citing the eighteenth-century record of Kim In-gyeom, who described Osaka as a “paradise of Chinese legend” and ten thousand times more splendid than Hansŏng, it also sharply criticizes the distortions surrounding the Uigwe restitution issue and broader Japan–Korea disputes over cultural property.

2019-04-26
“He recorded, with jealousy, that ‘the paradise spoken of in Chinese legend was Osaka.
It was ten thousand times more splendid than Hansŏng, now Seoul.
How vexing.’”

The following is from the latest book by Masayuki Takayama, the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
Those resident Koreans entrenched in NHK Osaka, which every year reports as though the Korean envoys had been carriers of culture, and those leftist infantilists who grew up reading the Asahi Shimbun, must read this chapter with their eyes wide open.

◎A Thief Should Not Speak So Arrogantly.

Prefatory passage omitted.

This was before apartment blocks had been built, and each household kept a garbage box in front of the house.
Kitchen waste and fallen leaves were burned in the yard in every household.
Scrap metal had its own junk dealers, so I do not recall exactly what kind of rubbish was put out, but the ones who scavenged through those garbage boxes were called bataya.
It is said that the origin of the name came from opening the lid and then shutting it with a bang.
From that sound.
There must also have been beggars, but the only one I remember is a disabled war veteran playing an accordion.
The original meaning of kojiki is one who begs for alms, that is, one who begs for food, but Korean envoys who came in the Muromachi period recorded with surprise that Japanese beggars asked for money.
That was because Korea at that time was still in an age of barter and knew nothing of currency or commerce.
They asked about gilding techniques and papermaking methods, and especially how to make waterwheels to draw water into rice fields.
Their mission was to take that knowledge back home.
Japan taught them gladly.
For example, in the case of the waterwheel, Japan even made a model for them, but perhaps it was too difficult for them, because it did not spread.
After a period of interruption, the Korean envoys began coming again in the Edo period.
Kim In-gyeom, who came to Osaka in the eighteenth century, was astonished that whereas the roofs of houses in his own country were thatched, “in Japan all roofs were tiled,” and he recorded with jealousy that “the paradise spoken of in Chinese legend was Osaka.
It was ten thousand times more splendid than Hansŏng, now Seoul.
How vexing.”
Around this time, they stole everything in sight, from the lacquered trays with maki-e served at banquets of hospitality, to the ceramics in the alcove, and even bedding.
Unable to overlook it, Arai Hakuseki simplified the reception of the envoys and forbade the use of fine vessels at banquets.
Seoul, which had stolen everything, now at this late date began saying, “Return the royal Uigwe that Japan stole.”
They are historical records from the Yi Dynasty, but what Japan possesses are copies.
They had even forgotten Onmun, which had been created by a king of that same Yi dynasty, and Japan restored it for them.
The same is true of the “Uigwe.”
Separate from the originals, Japan made copies, supplemented the parts missing from the originals, and preserved them.
And just as one would expect, they let the originals be scattered and lost.
Under the Japan–South Korea Basic Treaty, both sides renounced claims including those concerning cultural properties, but here too, as usual, they came out with the Takeshima method of attaching pretexts and making obstinate demands.
To be honest, for Japan these are hardly things of much consequence even if it possesses them.
Rather, the archaeological materials of the Ōtani Kōzui Expedition left at Keijō Imperial University and the documents of the Sō family of Tsushima, both relinquished under the Japan–South Korea Basic Treaty, are far more important, but they will not return them.
Incidentally, the mummy that is one of the main attractions of the Seoul Museum was also excavated by the Ōtani Expedition.
In responding to their demand for return, this should have been a fine opportunity to recover not only the Tsushima family documents and the mummy, but also the maki-e lacquered trays that they had stolen from Japan in the Edo period.
Then Naoto Kan appeared.
Since his circle consisted of Masayoshi Son as a friend and naturalized people from over there as his trusted aides, he readily promised, “We will return the copied Uigwe.”
There was no demand from Japan for anything to be returned.
South Korea was confident because Sarkozy, on condition of promoting France’s TGV high-speed rail, had agreed to the return of Korean old documents that had been taken.
France has firmly refused to return the Parthenon artifacts to Greece.
But it showed no attachment whatsoever to Korean items.
Then it was also decided that Hotel Okura would return the Korean stone pagoda standing quietly in its garden.
That one, it was said, could simply be given away.
Everyone had been troubled by rubbish they could not throw away.
Perhaps they thought it was a very good opportunity.
(Issue dated June 16, 2011)