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The waegwan at Choryang during late Joseon was the largest trading post at the time in East Asia. Its nearly 100,000-pyong grounds would usually accommodate around four to five hundred people from Japan's Tsushima prefecture (對馬藩) at any given time. With hundreds of Japanese coming into contact and forming relationships with Joseon people, major and minor unlawful acts were committed around the waegwan such as smuggling, assault, murder, theft, trespassing, and cross-national sexual encounters between Japanese men and Joseon women. Among such acts, cross-national sexual encounters were something the Joseon government particularly sought to control.

A Clashing Issue Between Joseon and Japan

Cross-national sexual encounters was an issue where Joseon and Japan's culture, customs, and perceptions clashed the most. Up until the early days of Joseon, it was not uncommon to witness a Japanese man bringing his wife and children along to stay at the waegwan. However, by late Joseon, government regulations turned the waegwan into a "male-only space" by forbidding not only Japanese women to stay, but by banning the entrance of Joseon women as well. For those staying at the waegwan, the only official opportunities to come into contact with females were when they shopped groceries from women who came by the waegwan's main gate each morning from villages nearby or when they enjoyed female entertainers perform at feasts that usually took place after an envoy holds a ceremony to pay his respects to the king while overseas.

In reality, however, Joseon women would occasionally get caught for sneaking into the waegwan and having sex with Japanese men. The Joseon government would deal with such matters by executing both the woman and any Joseon accomplice who helped the woman. One record in Joseon literature notes that a Joseon woman and her accomplice were beheaded in 1661 for engaging in a cross-national sexual encounter. In Japan, on the other hand, Dutch tradesmen staying at housings for the Dutch on Dejima (出島), Nagaksaki or the Chinese at the Chinese settlement called Tojin Yashiki (唐人屋敷) were not allowed to enter with women from their homeland, but were allowed to bring in local prostitutes (遊女). The reason the Joseon government took such extreme measures to punish cross-national sexual encounters is generally understood to have been because it was an unacceptable act according to the Confucian view of ethics that dictated Joseon society at the time. It has also been suggested that there could have been political motives aimed at preventing the homogeneous nation from being threatened by the growth of a mixed-race population. Whatever the case, Joseon initially punished its women and their accomplices, but after an incident in 1690, it began demanding Tsushima prefecture to execute the Japanese men involved as well.

The 1711 Joseon-Japan Agreement

Tsushima prefecture's stance on such matters was starkly different from Joseon since it would merely ban men from sailing to Joseon once they got caught having sexual encounters with Joseon women. When a Joseon woman named Gamok (甘玉) and her accomplice got arrested in 1707 for having sex with a Japanese man, the Tsushima prefectural government ordered the waegwan's Japanese manager to swiftly send back to Tsushima anyone who was remotely suspected for being involved in the incident. The prefecture had wanted to deal with the matter internally. The Joseon government nevertheless made a request of its own to the manager to track down and punish the man who had been involved with Gamok. However, the manager refused to comply with the Joseon government's request on grounds of ambiguity surrounding the case. And when the manager continued to ignore Joseon's requests, a delegation of official Joseon translators that traveled to Tsushima the following year in 1708 again asked the prefectural government to find and punish the man who had a sexual encounter with Gamok the previous year.

To the delegation's request, Tsushima prefecture protested that "in Japan, the Bakufu does not forbid people in the prefectures of Satsuma (薩摩藩) or Matsumae (松前藩) from having relations with men and women from Ryukyu (Okinawa) or Ezochi (Hokkaido), so there is no reason to punish them for doing so with women in other countries. It is unfair to ask for Joseon's punitive customs to be applied toward the Japanese without showing any consideration for Japanese customs. Nevertheless, we do intend to respect bans enforced in Joseon out of respect for our friendly relations. So, if a man is indeed found guilty of the charges, he will be sent into exile and such measures will be codified into relevant regulations." This response failed to satisfy Joseon, so when the 1711 Joseon mission visited Japan, a further demand was made for Tsushima prefecture to keep its word by entering into an agreement. As a result, the following articles became part of Sinmyo yakjo (辛卯約條), or the "Sinmyo Year Agreement" made between Joseon and Tsushima prefecture.

  - Should a Tsushima person slip out of the waegwan and commit rape, that person shall be sentenced to death according to the provisions of the criminal code.

  - Should a Tsushima person entice a woman into fornication, that person shall be permanently exiled for committing fornication or attempting rape.

  - Should a Tsushima person fail to report (to Joseon) a woman who sneaks into the waegwan and instead engages in a sexual encounter with the woman, that person shall be punished by being sent into exile.

Up until then, Joseon had continued to claim that all Japanese men who have sexual relations with Joseon women should be executed regardless of circumstantial differences between individual cases. Based on surviving records of such cases, most fell under the third type where women infiltrate the waegwan with the help of a Joseon accomplice, which indicates that the agreement did take the Tsushima prefecture's stance into consideration by prescribing exile instead of death toward such cases.

Choryang Waegwan and Nihonmachi

When it comes to studies on waegwans, some Japanese scholars tend to describe the waegwan in Choryang, today's Busan, as the "Nihonmachi of Joseon" and compare it with other nihonmachis (日本町) or nihonjinmachis (日本人町) that used to exist in Southeast Asia. Nihonmachi refers to an area inhabited by the Japanese during the early seventeenth century when they actively engaged in export activities in Southeast Asia. As the Edo bakufu promulgated its closed-door policy in the 1630s, thereby prohibiting its people from sailing abroad or people living abroad from returning to their homeland, the ties nihonmachis had with their homeland Japan were severed and they naturally disappeared during the eighteenth century. The fact that nihonmachis in Southeast Asia were established so that Japan could maintain control over its people is a similarity they share with waegwans. However, nihonmachis were Japanese settlements mainly populated by commercial migrants, which is in many ways different from what waegwans were.

Of course, drawing an analogy between nihonmachis and Choryang waegwan is understandable for the purpose of highlighting the fact that the waegwan existed in Joseon at a time when Japan closed its doors and let all Japanese settlements abroad become dissolved. And the fact hints that, in terms of the external relations of Edo Japan, its relationship with Joseon had been an exception. Yet, it must be pointed out that such a linear comparison could easily lead to misunderstandings about the true nature of waegwans in Joseon.