Who is Ahn Yong-Bok?
Yi Ik, a great Choseon Dynasty scholar of the 17th century, who lived in similar times as Sir Ahn Yong-Bok, in his book Seongho Saseol (= My Analecta of Miscellaneous Works) said Sir Ahn Yong-Bok was an oarsman of the navy battleship, was fluent in Japanese language because he frequented Japanese Mission in Busan, and was a lowly soldier when he went to Japan for the Ulleungdo matter.
In those days, oarsmen who rowed on a battleship were usually of low social status. Perhaps, Sir Ahn Yong-Bok was close to being the man-slave of the government. The first time he went to Japan, he had been carrying an identity tag, saying “the owner is Oh Chung-Chu who lives in Hanyang”. That tells us that he was still of a status close to a slave when he went to Japan.
Further, that he was an oarsman means that he was big and strong, and had a muscular body. In Korea, almost every family name can be retraced back to its original ancestor and tell the distance of blood relationship among the same family name. So an Ahn clan, precisely saying, the “Sunheung” Ahn subclan considers Sir Ahn Yong-Bok as one of its members, and the subclan imagines that Sir Ahn Yong-Bok had a dark skin and traces of smallpox on his face based on his name tag, and so naturally an image of big and strong man comes into our minds.
Concerning the birth year of Sir Ahn Yong-Bok, there are three theories of 1651, 1654 and 1657. Among them the “Sunheung” Ahn subclan seems to lean towards 1657. Regarding Sir Ahn Yong-Bok’s family, in Choseon Wangjo Sillok (= Annals of the Choseon Dynasty), it is recorded that “Ahn Yong-Bok went to Ulsan to see his mother” while he was preparing to go to Japan for the second time in 1696, so we can assume that he had a mother and was alive, but there are no records written about his father or siblings. Ahn Yong-Bok Memorial Association claims that he had a wife named Yuyu. Regarding Sir Ahn Yong-Bok’s address or his main acting stage, many scriptures say that he was a ‘Dongnae citizen’, and in addition, his identity tag is written as “No. 13, Jwacheon 1 road, Busan ...”, so we can conclude that his main stage was Dongnae, Busan, and Ulsan.
