When we think about the Silk Roads our imaginary almost always transports us to that conceived idea of faraway lands, deserts, caravans and One Thousand and One Nights sceneries somewhere in Persia. In fact, anyone who looks a little closer to the reality of History itself, quickly realizes that the Silk Roads are much more than that – they are a common point between times and peoples across Eurasia.

One example of the grandiosity of these connections are the sometimes forgotten similarities between Portugal and Korea. To begin with, both countries lie on a peninsula in the far corners of its continents – while Portugal is located in the extreme west of Iberia Peninsula, in Europe, Korea is located in the extreme east of Asia, in the Korean Peninsula.

And both have relatively the same dimensions. These locations marked their history in ways which are very similar, despite the cultural differences and the distance that separates them.

Since early times, these small kingdoms with long dynasties and relatively stable frontiers, had to deal with a complex geopolitical situation that, quite often, putted their sovereignty in danger – Portugal with the hazard of Spain and Korea with the hazard of China, Japan and peoples from the North (such as the Jurchen, Khitan or the Mongols).

It is rather interesting that such distant countries connect the farthest points of the Silk Roads, both terrestrial and maritime. Across dozens of countries, different oceans and beautiful cultures, both nations show us that what unite us is much bigger than what separates us and makes us realized that our own cultures are far more tangled in history networks than we actually realize nowadays. From Greece to Persia, from China to Rome, from Japan to Portugal, all these cultures are somehow mixed together through History’s most brutal ways, but also by History’s most illuminating paths.

Another thing that brings Portugal and Korea closer is their relation with the ocean.

Portugal has been, since the XV century, a country invested in maritime exploration and nowadays has a famous and important Navy. Korea has had a recognizable and excellent Navy and military strategy, famous since at least the XVI century, with brilliant sailors and fighters such as Commander Lee Sun-sin (이순신 1545 – 1598) and the formidable turtle

ships (거북선 / Geobukseon).

The contacts between the Portuguese and the Koreans are old, dated from the XVI century and brings light to the longstanding relations and connections – more or less direct 1– between the two places, across the oceans. During this time the Portuguese were present in Tanegashima, in Japan, and frequently commercialized with Korean merchants in the region, establishing a route of communication, even though the Portuguese kingdom never had an official presence in the Korean kingdom. In fact, the missionaries from Portugal knew about the Korean kingdom, writing about it in their letters, such as the case of Father Gaspar Vilela, who in 1571 wrote to the Fathers from Avis Convent, in Portugal, describing the Korean kingdom and its people

.

Even in the languages domain we can see interconnections. For instance, the word for bread in Korean - “ppang” / 빵 - comes from the Japanese adaptation – pan / パン - of the Portuguese word “pão” (bread).

More than that, the Portuguese might have also helped the Koreans during the Imjin War (임진외란 1592 – 1598), against the Japanese, when Portuguese men came along with the Ming to assist the Joseon dynasty (조선시대 1392 – 1910). These Portuguese men would have direct contact with King Seonjo (선조 1552 – 1608), who talked with them during a banquet in a quarter2.

Nowadays both Korea and Portugal keep sharing similarities: their location, their geopolitical history, their old encounters through History, their warmth, the formality of their languages, the fame of their delicious gastronomy, the relative maintenance of their societies’ traditionality, and others. This shows us that the Silk Roads might have kilometers and kilometers of length, but the cultures we find along its ways are closer than one could initially consider. So far yet so close, these two places are the example of the old and long history of the Silk Roads and its connecting points. So we should think twice before considering these Roads a stagnant place. They are long, old, dynamic and definitely much more connected than we could realize at a first glance: from the extreme west Portugal to the extreme east Korea, from the ancient times to the present day, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific one, from the cold airs of Russia to the tropical waters of the south of India and Southeast Asia and through the richness of the European cities to the exuberance of the Asian deserts.

1 Kang, B.-g. (2006). O Significado dos Primeiros Contactos dos Portugueses com a Coreia para o Século XXI.

1.º Seminário do Korea Portugal Forum, pp. 1-37. Universidades Lusíadas Editora.

Kang, 2006, pp. 23-24;

2 Idem, pp. 25-26.

2Ana Rita Soares

Portugal, Lisbon

New University of Lisbon – Faculty of Social and Human Sciences

PhD in Contemporary History (Korean History and Diplomacy)