Historical figure
Zhou Daguan
ជីវ តាក្វាន់
Zhou Daguan (ជីវ តាក្វាន់) was a Chinese traveler who went to Angkor with an embassy of the Yuan dynasty in 1296 and 1297. His account of the visit is the only surviving record of daily life and customs in the Angkorian capital.[1][2]
Life
Little is known of Zhou Daguan himself. He came from Yongjia, near the port city of Wenzhou in southeastern China.[3][1] The translator Peter Harris describes the area as one of traders, merchants and sailors.[1] The French scholar Paul Pelliot, who translated his account in 1902, noted that Zhou held no official post and was not the ambassador himself, but went with the embassy.[3]
In 1295 the Yuan emperor ordered an envoy to Cambodia to deliver an imperial edict to King Indravarman III. Zhou went with him. The embassy reached the Khmer capital, then called Yasodharapura, in 1296, and was back in China in 1297.[3][1] Zhou stayed about 11 months.[1]
The Customs of Cambodia
Zhou's notes from his stay became a book in 40 sections, known in English as A Record of Cambodia or The Customs of Cambodia, and in Khmer as «ប្រពៃណីនៃអ្នកស្រុកចេនឡា».[3][1][4] He called the country Zhenla, and noted that its people called it Ganbozhi.[2]
The book covers the city and its temples, the court, festivals and food, the settling of disputes, illness, farming and trade, plants and animals, slavery and funeral rites.[1] Zhou described a gold tower at the center of the walled city, flanked by about 20 stone towers. Historians identify it as the Bayon. He also described a bronze tower, identified as the Baphuon (ប្រាសាទបាពួន), and a gold tower where the king slept, identified as the Phimeanakas. A gold tower in a lake, with a gold lion and a bronze elephant, ox and horse, is identified as Neak Poan (ប្រាសាទនាគព័ន្ធ).[1] He wrote that at the New Year the king lit fireworks and firecrackers.[1]
He also wrote down what he did not understand. For a plant he saw, he used the name of a Chinese medicinal plant that does not grow in Cambodia, and his "wild oxen" were probably banteng or kouprey.[2] Some of his notes held true much later. He wrote that the people of the capital never ate white eels or frogs, and the scientist Solang Uk heard the same of Siem Reap province in the 1950s.[2] Zhou himself wrote that he did not know all the details of the country's customs, but knew "enough general information and major matters".[2]
The Khmer of the time wrote everyday texts on palm leaves and dyed parchment, which have not survived, and their stone inscriptions record religious and official matters. Zhou's book is therefore the only account of ordinary life at Angkor.[1][2]
Editions and translations
The book was copied many times over the centuries, and parts were lost or changed. Harris cites a 17th-century Chinese book collector who thought that as much as two thirds of the original text was missing.[1][2]
Pelliot's French translation of 1902 was the basis for English versions for decades.[1][2] The Cambodian writer Ly Thiam Teng published a Khmer translation in the early 1970s.[2] Peter Harris published an English translation made directly from the Chinese in 2007.[1][2] In 2016 Solang Uk and Beling Uk published an annotated version, Customs of Cambodia, based on the 14th-century Wu Guan edition of the Chinese text.[2]
Statue at Siem Reap Angkor International Airport
On October 16, 2025, the second anniversary of Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, a statue of Zhou Daguan was unveiled there. It stands with a statue of Preah Reach Kru Divakara Pandita (ព្រះរាជគ្រូទិវាករបណ្ឌិត), an Angkorian scholar who served five kings. The State Secretariat of Civil Aviation set them up with the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts and the airport's operating company. They mark the airport's anniversary and 67 years of diplomatic relations between Cambodia and China.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 The Cambodia Daily, Michelle Vachon, Chinese Tales of Ancient Angkor (January 9, 2010)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 The Cambodia Daily, Michelle Vachon, A Foreign Visitor to Angkor—600 Years Ago (May 12, 2016)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Paul Pelliot, "Mémoires sur les coutumes du Cambodge", Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 2 (1902) (in French)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Kampuchea Thmey, Statues of an Angkorian Khmer scholar and Zhou Daguan unveiled at Siem Reap airport (October 16, 2025; in Khmer)