National Geographic: Glories Of Angkor Page #4

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To show to Mongol Emperor

what sorts of people lay at the far

boundaries of his empire,

what sorts of products they had,

what they looked like.

The inhabitants are rude and ugly

and very black.

The indigenous women are very

lustful.

If a husband has to leave for a

distant mission,

that's alright for a couple of nights.

But after a dozen nights the woman

will certainly complain,

"Who am I, a ghost that needs no

one to sleep with?"

He was a keen observer, telling us

about the people, the daily lives.

Zhou Dagoun left us something very

special.

He has left the only first hand

record that we have of Angkor.

He was here when Angkor was a

kingdom.

But we have to always keep in mind

he was a foreigner,

so he was perceiving the kingdom

and what he knew

in his background which was

Chinese.

About Zhou Dagoun little is known.

He was probably about thirty

years old,

a diplomat, perhaps an aristocrat.

From the details he reported to

the Khan

emerge a character fascinated with

earthy pleasures.

He came from an obsessive prudish

kind of culture

and he saw in this tropical climate

and enjoyed seeing, women taking

off their scanty costumes

and getting into the river to bathe

with nothing on at all,

and he commented on this

not only because it was so barbarian

and rare and un Chinese

but I think also because he enjoyed

watching the spectacle.

Every three or four days

the women go and bathe in a river

outside the city.

Even the women from the noble

families

take part in these baths and aren't

ashamed.

Everyone can see them from the to

of their heads

to the bottom of their feet.

The Chinese, on their day off,

go and see it.

I've heard that there are those who

enter the water

to take advantage of the situation.

The water is always as hot as fire.

For Zhou Dagoun, his year in Angkor

would be full of such surprises

and contrasts.

He was Chinese, but from the

frigid plains,

a Mongol whose race worshipped

war above all things.

By contrast, the Khmere had

embraced Buddhism,

and its creed of compassion

and rebirth.

The city of one million enjoyed

a calendar

full of parades, festivals,

and holy days.

The Chinese who arrive as sailors

find it comfortable

that in this country one doesn't

have to wear clothes.

And since rice is easy to earn, and

women easy to persuade,

there are many who desert to stay.

As he cataloged Angkor's marvels,

Zhou Dagoun himself may have

thought about deserting for a life

in the jungle paradise.

As a spy of sorts, he no doubt

soon discovered

that all the Khmere's might and

majesty

largely depended on one thing

- water.

Three rice-harvests a year fed the

city of about one million,

and paid for everything from

temple building to defense.

To grow the rice, they had to tame

the water.

They harnessed the water from the

Ton Le Sap Lake

by building a series of canals, dikes,

and moats

from the lake up to the city of

Angkor.

During the rainy season,

when the lake began to rise

water was forced up these canals,

up above the city,

and collected in large reservoirs,

called barays for year-round use.

And in fact the system

that was employed at Angkor

a thousand years ago

is more advanced than any

irrigation system

used in Cambodia today.

The relationship between the king

and water has a very long history.

The whole reason that Angkor is

located on this plain

is because of the access of water.

So the king could provide fish and

rice

and therefore his people would

prosper

and his genealogy would continue.

Not surprisingly the symbol of

water - a snake -

is key to Khmere faith.

In Angkor, Zhou Dagoun would

have found

the revered reptile depicted

countless times,

in scenes said to reveal the secret

of immortality.

The churning of the ocean of milk

is known in Hindu mythology

- its much loved in Cambodia in

their art.

It's depicted with gods on one side

and demons on the other

and they're holding a large scaly

body of a serpent.

They pull left and right and left

and right

in a way that we would call a tug

of war.

They're churning to try to yield the

elixir of immortality.

Immortality was a daily pursuit

inside the Royal Palace,

the abode of Khmere Kings.

Kings had more than a thousand

concubines

- the most beautiful women

of the empire.

Scores are depicted at the Royal

Terrace... no two alike.

Concerning the concubines and the

girls of the palace,

I've heard that the number is

between three and five thousand.

When in a family there's

a beautiful girl,

she's immediately sent to the

palace.

As a foreigner, and an oddity,

Zhou Dagoun wasn't permitted to

enter the Royal Palace...

but he heard a legend about the

magic that took place inside.

In the Golden Tower

inside the palace the sovereign goes

to sleep in its highest part.

All the locals assert that inside the

tower there's a genie

- master of the whole territory of

the kingdom.

This genie appears every night in the

form of a woman.

Its with her that the sovereign lies

with and then has sex.

If one night the genie doesn't

appear,

this is because the time for the

barbarian king's death has come.

If the king doesn't show up even for

one night,

something terrible will happen.

He would comment on some of

their unusual customs

but then he would always draw

comparisons back to the way

we do things in China.

So I think he saw commonalties

between the Khmer and the Chinese.

In this country it's the women who

know about commerce.

If a Chinese arrives here and

immediately takes a woman,

its because he wants to take

advantage

of the woman's trading skills,

[which could easily exceed his own.]

Zhou Dagoun disapproved of most

Angkor customs

but praised one - the status of

women.

The envoy noted that women ran

commerce throughout the city,

and women intellectuals were among

the king's most trusted counselors.

Women figure prominently in

engravings on a temple at Angkor

called the Bayon.

They depict dozens of types of

business

and the daily activities of Khmere

life.

In fact everything the Mongols

wanted to know about the Khmere

was right here-agriculture, slaves,

rare goods.

For Zhou Dagoun it would have

been an intelligence goldmine.

Valuable products are the feathers

of the kingfisher,

elephant tusks, rhino's horn, and

beeswax.

The white rhinoceros horn is veined

and is the most precious;

the black one is inferior.

In general, the people of this

country are very simple.

When they see a Chinese,

they are respectfully frightened and

call him "Buddha".

Seeing him, they throw themselves

to the ground and bow low.

From Zhou Dagoun's reports we

know about the fact

that there were astronomers there.

We know about the fact that,

that various groups of people within

the court were scientists.

So this was an area of discovery.

This was the Renaissance area of

southeast Asia.

More than five centuries before

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