CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY 637
to punish anyone who permitted anything more than three toasts at a banquet.
Cho's recommendations had a great effect on Yu Hyongwon, who proposed
three items of legislation for any monarch to adopt. All officials were to be
required to supply their own food at home. Food supplied and utensils used for
envoys and guests arriving at district towns were to be limited by his specific
regulations, based on the rank of the visitor. Only envoys and officials passing
through on official business with orders from the throne, or on their return from
an embassy abroad would be entertained at formal banquets, not just a wild and
carousing party, and on no other occasion would a banquet be held for them.^67CHINESE CLOTHING AND LANGUAGEAbolish the Horsehair Hat
One of the most significant of Yu's proposals for reform involved what might
otherwise appear to have been a matter of little importance - his plan to adopt
the Chinese system for clothing and hats "in all respects." But Yu also warned
his readers that if there were any "error" in contemporary Chinese clothing, that
is, if current Chinese garb was not faithful to ancient norms. then the govern-
ment should conduct an investigation of the ancient clothing system to rectify
the mistake. As a corollary Yu also called for the abolition of the traditional Korean
horsehair hat, the adoption of the classical undergarment called the sim'ili
described in the Li-chi, the substitution of Chinese-style hats for women. and
the provision that officials in the provinces would wear the same garb as those
in the capital.
The inspiration for these ideas also came directly from Cho Hon's memorial
to King Sonja. Cho's admiration of Ming clothing styles reminds one almost of
the kind of indiscriminate cultural borrowing advocated by the radical West-
ernizers of Meiji Japan. Three-quarters of a century later after both the Ming
and Korea had been subjugated by Manchu power, Cho Hon 's Sinophilism must
have been overwhelmingly attractive, and Yu chose to quote Cho's lengthy
description of the various types of Chinese clothing verbatim.^68
Cho had done research on the types and dimensions of garments in the Hung-
wu period of the Ming (I368-99), and he praised the superiority, utility. sim-
plicity, and economy of those garments compared to the clothing and hats worn
by contemporary Koreans. He deplored the poor and rustic attire of Korean clerks
except for a few places like Pyongyang and Uiju, and proposed that all of them
be required to wear formal attire. He advised that Ming hairstyles be adopted
for men. straight hair instead of braids for boys under the age of fifteen, and
topknots with hats for those older (twenty for the sons of high officials, schol-
ars, and commoners). Women were to adopt the Chinese-style chignon with a
long hairpin, and abandon the expensive and extravagant Korean custom of using
too much fur in their hats.
For that matter, he admired the variety of hats that the Chinese men wore,