The Myth of “Chohanji”: Korea’s Book Title That Never Existed in China
Creatrip Team
a month ago
A Korean article investigates why the familiar title “Chohanji” (楚漢誌) — understood in Korea as a classic Chinese historical novel about the Chu–Han Contention — does not actually exist in Chinese bibliographies. The piece traces the Korean usage back to a 1966 Korean translation by writer Bang Ki-hwan, who retitled the Ming work Xihan Yanyi (西漢演義, “Romance of the Western Han”) as “Chohanji.” Later popularizations — notably Go Woo-young’s 1983 comic “Chohanji” and a 1984 reissue of Kim Pal-bong’s novel under the same name — cemented the title in Korean cultural memory, even though the original Chinese text was not called “Chohanji.” Recent scholarship and a 2019 full Korean translation of Xihan Yanyi recovered the original source and clarified that Korea’s “Chohanji” is a local retitling and adaptation rather than a direct Chinese title. The article explains related naming conventions (e.g., Western Han = “Xihan” and differences in East Asian naming like “Western/Eastern Han” vs. “Former/Later Han”) and shows how publishing and popular media shaped the misconception.
