កំណត់ហេតុរបស់លោក ជីវ តាក្វាន់ អំពីប្រពៃណីនៃអ្នកស្រុកចេនឡា [Chiv Ta-Kwan's Diary] | Zhou Daguan's Diary on Traditions of the People of Chenla

In order to help the research on the unique written source regarding Angkor in the 13^th century, we are publishing here the digital version of Ly Team Teng​’s work, initially published in 1973.

While the author was not completely familiar with ancient Chinese, as he acknowledged in his introduction (see Translator’s Comments below), his contribution in clarifying some 41 Khmer words Zhou Daguan adapted to the Chinese language — as identified by Paul Pelliot and not including location names — has been lauded by researcher Uk Solang, himself author of an English translation. Uk Solang had discovered a copy of Ly Team Teng’s book in a Phnom Penh bookstore in 2004, while he was researching for his translation (along with wife Solang), and had contacted Ly Team Teng’s widow and son.

There are many comments forthcoming about the translator’s choice. We’ll point out just one example, the last sentence on Chapter 6, where LTT translate the Chinese 二形人 Er xing ren , literally ​“people with two forms”, by ​“មនុស្សស្រីភេទខ្លះស្អាតៗ”, ​“some beautiful women”. Remark that Uk Solang, in his English translation, used the translation ​“transvestites”, which is not satisfying. Paul Pelliot wrote ​“mignons”, French equivalent of Peter Harris’ ​“effeminate men”, pointing to the ​“transgender” aspect of these individuals. They certainly were what is still largely known in South East Asia as ​‘katoey” people.

Translator’s Comments

“The diary of Zhou Daguan [Chiv Takwan in Khmer transliteration] about the traditions of the Chenla people” the reader is now holding is really a sacred document of our Khmer history. In every history book or any study on Cambodia, reference to Zhou Daguan’s document was never omitted. The Cambodian youth who learns the history of their own country, will surely know the name: Chiv Ta Kwan, but what we do know are just consecutive words that was told from one to another, book copied after one another, from one book to another through the translation from the original book In French language by Paul Pelliot who translate from the Chinese article and was first published in the Bulletin of the French School of the Far East (Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’Extreme-Orient, BEFEO) in 1902. After Pelliot’s death, George Cœdès took his work, including additional commentary, to publish it as a book in 1951. Pelliot stated in his preface that he once had tried to translate from a document of Chiv Ta Kwan that Abel Rémusat has translate and had lunched the first publication in 1819 but not yet a perfection. George Cœdès, himself has been living in China for years until he can complete this work.

We, Khmer people would like to thank you especially for these researchers as their work is same as helping us to discover such a precious treasure. Because of those translators/​researchers aren’t Cambodian, we always thought that if any Cambodian can translate directly from the Chinese texts, we would feel more satisfied even though it is not a perfect translation.

I used to learn Chinese character for four years since I was young but had forgotten almost everything, only recalling some characters that I often used and can copy the Chinese texts. After seeing the translation of Pelliot including some Chinese texts along with explanations such as the name of the district and references of publications, I just kept noting down those detail as a document. 

Fortunately, in 1962, I was given a cultural mission to lead a delegation of Cambodian writers to China. I always had a thought to ask for the document of Chiv Ta Kwan as I will be able to come to China, his home country. When I met with the Chinese minister of Culture, who was also the president of the Chinese Writers Association, I requested him to see Chiv Ta Kwan’s writing with my desire to see and copy this document. The Minister of Culture agreed to fulfill my wish. That night, I was so excited and hoped for morning to arrive so I could go to visit their national library. I didn’t get to go to the National Library the next morning, as we had a program to visit places far away from town first. It was not until five days later that I was taken to the ​“rare book section” in the National Library in Beijing. The librarian together with the other two collaborators — a librarian from the Rare Books section and Tea Siv Meng, 69, a specialist in researching the history of the Far East Countries, were waiting for me. Tea Siv Meng was the one who prepared a pile of books to show me, which are all related to the history of Cambodia and were all published from the 14^th to the 17^th centuries. We had a long conversation as he wanted to see if I really know and interested in the history or just asking in a way to show off. Fortunately, I have seen a lot of documents on the relationship between the two countries, and before coming to China, I also recorded these documents, because my mission is on this cultural issue. I answer to him in an agile response until the other party took me to meet the head of the history department.

Among those thick books, some only describe about our country in only a few pages. An only one book called ​“The History of the Mongolian Empire” which has a large part that was briefly describing about sending a missionary, Chiv Ta Kwan to Chenla. I asked to copy this whole book, 63 pages, and they agreed to let me copy, resulting in a big file of pictures. After arriving back in Cambodia, I printed out the photos but unfortunately, they weren’t clear enough to understand the letters on it. I gathered all of the printed photos, compiled them as a book, and kept it at the Khmer Writers Association, hoping that in the future, someone may be able to translate it. Two years later, the book was lost and no one knew where it was or who took it. I assumed that the person who took the book must had deliberately taken it to keep as their own, or to hid it to prevent anybody from translating the article. Luckily, I still had another file of the photos I took back then in China and printed out, translated and published. Even though, it was not perfect but it helps to contribute to the work of Cambodian researchers. Secondly, it also adds to the number of useful information. 

This translation work had me worried as I have to find someone who can translate Chinese texts and ancient Chinese texts. However, we couldn’t find anyone with sufficient knowledge to do so. Most of the translators only have sufficient knowledge to translate modern Chinese texts, but not ancient Chinese texts. One of my friends, Eung Lay was a writer in 1955 – 1956, then a translator and subtitler for Chinese films, was able to translate old Chinese texts. He promised to gives his full support and we did translate the whole book. When there are difficult words, he checks the dictionary and write a note with the definition for me. My other friend, Ma Eang used to be a Khmer literature teacher at a Chinese school also have helped me to translate some part of the book. I put together the two translated works and compared the original text to the one we have translated, and also to Pelliot’s French translation. This was still unsatisfied for me. One day, I ran into my former teacher, Tang Suy Kong, who’s now 71 years of age. When I was learning Chinese in 1940, he was a professor of Khmer literature. He knew many stories and was self-taught, following traditional Chinese methods. Currently, he lives with his children and grandchildren, some of whom work as civil servants while others are involved in business. I asked him to help me verifying the meaning. He was happy to help with the translation. He then explained me chapter by chapter, with me attempting to verify the meaning of my translation, adding any missing part, amending wrong spelling, adding clarification notes to the most difficult to understand parts, always following what he told me. After three months, we finalized the piece nd published it.

On the other hand, there are different tones in the Chinese language, depending on the dialects, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Cantonese, Teochew, and Hokkien. Chiv Ta Kwan was born in Wenzhou, southeast of China. Therefore, his language is very special, just like his hometown. In Chenla, there are no Chinese from Wenzhou, only those from Kwang Tung, known as Cantonese or Teochew, who have settled and been living in Chenla. That is why the accent of the words he tried to replicate from Khmer was very difficult to understand, partly due to the Cantonese or Teochew accents of the Chinese translators who assisted him. In this translation, we agreed to follow the Teochew accent as the primary one because the Teochew community had the largest population living in Chenla and most of Chinese speakers would pronounce the the Khmer words translated from Chinese according to the Teochew accent.

Therefore, I would like to apologize in advance to those of you who have a deep understanding of Chinese if my team and I have made any omissions, or if there are any gaps in our transcription.

Phnom Penh. June, 1971 — LY Theam Teng (translated by Ranith Soboros).