I started this when I went to Toronto in October 2012. I brought it with me because it wasn't very long/heavy to carry on a plane. I feel like it was so long ago and I have no recollection of when I actually finished it - months ago now.
It is one of those historical documents that has a shimmer of stardust around the corners. A memoir by someone who actually spent a year among the population of an active, inhabited and bustling Angkor Wat? How incredible!
However, first impressions are often deceiving. It's not that it isn't indeed such a memoir by such a traveller. It's that what Zhou Daguan left behind was likely much more than has survived to today, and what does remain is not extensive, likely rearranged and trimmed/chopped at least once. What remains is a quite dry description without a lot of details or scene setting. From a modern perspective, it's still wonderful to have even that tiny glimpse. But it's such a tiny snapshot that it leaves you wanting so much more!
Title: Zhou Daguan's A Record of Cambodia - the Land and Its People
Translated with an introduction and notes by: Peter Harris
Published: 2007
Pages: 135
Total books blogged: 14
Total pages: 4707
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