Munin posts about reading from an old Korean geomancy text:

The book was written to help yangban elites choose their residences in accordance with the natural laws of geomancy but it remains popular today, presumably for its extensive content on all aspects of Korea’s geography and its often entertaining historical anecdotes. There are sections dedicated to the eight major provinces, describing them in detail and criticizing them for their perceived weaknesses. I think it is safe to say that the book is overall thoroughly pro-Gyeongsang (except for the coast, for reasons I will discuss below) which it claims has the best geomantic qualities.

In addition to describing each province individually, it also discusses the character of the peoples who live there, the development of factionalism in the Chosŏn dynasty and the variety of terrain and scenery in Korea. In this little gem of a book, we can get a window into the growingly fixed perceptions of regional difference domestically, but also some interesting comments on the dynasty’s relationship to China (中國) and Japan (倭). Below are just a few interesting lines that I found particularly memorable. In some places, I looked up the original classical Chinese (which is the writing system used by Korean male elites for most things in pre-modern Korea) to find out what terms they were using.