The acculturation process of the Manchu tribes to the more highly developed Chinese culture and tradition, taking centuries to complete, included in its different phases of development almost every aspect of spiritual, governmental and institutional life. Other than the learning gained directly from Chinese tutors, the other important vehicle for the transmission of Chinese culture was through the easily obtainable printed books. Chinese influence on the Manchus had begun long before the latter conquered Peking in 1644. It had come indirectly through the descendants of the Jurchen peoples, who ruled North China as the Jin dynasty from 1115 to 1234, and through the neighbouring Mongols. Even such Manchu cultural elements as shamanism, considered until today as purely autochthonous, were pervaded with ideas from Chinese Buddhism and Taoism to such an extent that one often wonders what exactly Manchu culture consisted of. Recent efforts to protect the national language and culture are further evidence both of Chinese culture's increasingly powerful force and of conscious attemps to mitigate it. It was the Manchus’ acute awareness of Chinese influences early on, however, as well as skill in handling the 2,000 year-old Chinese state, that enabled them to rule for 268 years despite their having been a meagre 2 per cent of the population.

The Manchus gave special attention to translations into Manchu of Chinese literature, along with their continued study of Chinese writings directly, with the aid of teachers. Further more, as Sinicization grew ever stronger and elements of native Manchu culture were considered inferior, Chinese literature gained ground. Even in the highest period of Manchu rule the native literature was never more than a vehicule of translation. Original Manchu works — apart from a few handwritten exceptions and a multitude of preserved official documents — did not survive the following suppressions and are today irretrievably lost. The majority was probably never set down in writing, but existed orally, as in case of the Mongolian tradition.

For the expert, the true value and skill of the Manchu translation literature derives from the factual interpretation of linguistically difficult Chinese texts by persons well versed in Chinese scholarship. As has often been pointed out, the Manchu translation of a Chinese original in some sense replaces the Chinese literatus who could translate and explain that particular text in the tradition of his time.

This book was written between 1981 and 1986, it was first published in 1987, and it has been out of print since. The Chinese version of it by Yan Bao et al., Zhongguo chuantong xiaoshuo zai yazhou, which was also published in Beijing by the International Publishing House in 1989, is equally out of print. Since then more works especially in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Western languages have appeared which are mainly concerned with cultural exchanges between China and the countries of East Asia.

Moreover a new interest has arisen among scholars from various countries on what has been termed “Asian Translation traditions” and conferences are regularly organized on this topic. The first, on a very limited scope, was held at the SOAS in London in 2004, and gave rise to the publication of a collective book (Eva Hung and Judy Wakabayashi eds., Asian Translation Traditions, Manchester, St. Jerome Publ., 2005, 287 pp.) Since then three other conferences were held: the second in Baroda (2005), the third in Istanbul (2008), the fourth jointly organized by the Research Centre for Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in Hong Kong (2010). The next to come, in 2012, will be organized by and held at the American University of Sharjah (AUS), the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Research Centre for Translation (RCT), a research unit at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), established in 1971, which aims to promote Chinese literature through English translation works and to foster pioneering research in translation studies, has recently shown an interest for the history of literary translations in Asia. It has just launched a new annual journal entitled Fanyishi yanjiu “Studies in Translation History”, which is edited by the RCT and published and distributed by Fudan University Press, Shanghai. This is currently the only journal in Chinese to focus on the study of translation history. It is under the joint editorship of Lawrence Wang Chi Wong, RCT and of Uganda Sze Pui Kwan from the Department of Chinese Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

As I remember, it was in 1982 when Dr Salmon came to Beijing, she wrote me a letter, consulting me about certain problems. But it was not till 1984 that we had the opportunity to meet in Paris. That November, at the invitation of the French Ministry of Foreign Relations and the 8th University of Paris, I visited France and gave lectures there. At that time when I was giving a lecture at the Université de Paris 7, Dr Salmon, Dr Marianne Bastid, director at the National Centre for Scientific Research of France, and M. Li Zhihua, our famous translator of the romance “The Dream of the Red Chamber”, were present. Dr Salmon raised several questions regarding translations of French literature into Chinese. Afterwards, she came to Cité Universitaire where I stayed, to see me, and I went to her residence on Vaugirard Street to see her too. Since then we have formed an unforgettable friendship.

“The Dream of the Red Chamber”, were present. Dr Salmon raised several questions regarding translations of French literature into Chinese. Afterwards, she came to Cité Universitaire where I stayed, to see me, and I went to her residence on Vaugirard Street to see her too. Since then we have formed an unforgettable friendship.

Dr Salmon lives in the South of Paris, not far from Boulevard Montparnasse and Pasteur Metro station, so the communication is convenient. It is a peaceful locality in the midst of downtown area. When I entered her room on the fifth floor, my first impression is that here is beyond all question the residence of a scholar.

The furnishing is not luxurious. But through the way to her arrangement, one can see at the first glance that it is the residence of a Sinologist and Orientalist. For in the room there are some fine arts and furniture from China and Southeast Asia.

The fact that Chinese was used for centuries as the written language necessarily made a deep impact on Vietnamese literature, to such an extent that the Chinese and Vietnamese cultures are, in many respects, indistinguishable from each other. Until the invention of the chữ nôm, which marks the first attempt to write down the Vietnamese language, all written literature was in Chinese while Vietnamese was restricted to the oral sphere. This new form of national writing derived from Chinese ideograms was never taken seriously at the court except for brief periods under Hồ Quí Ly at the beginning of the fifteenth century and under Quang Trung in the eighteenth century. Moreover, this form of writing could never really satisfy the aspirations of those who wished to do away with the dichotomy between written and oral language since, in order to be able to use the chữ nôm, it was practically necessary to know Chinese. Nonetheless, this new form of writing was undeniably well-received by some members of the lettered classes who used it to write poems as well as verse novels that were often inspired by Chinese literature. These two forms of writing, which remained essentially the preserve of scholars, gradually came to be replaced by the quốc ngữ which owed its emergence in the nineteenth century solely to France's active military intervention in Vietnam. Quốc ngữ did not emerge without provoking the fierce resistance of Vietnamese patriots opposed to their country's occupation. The year 1865 saw the appearance of the first journal in quốc ngữ, the Gia Ðịnh Báo, a monthly published at the initiative of the occupiers while 1919 brought an end to the mandarinal system of examinations in Sino-Vietnamese and saw the French take control of the educational system.

We shall consider the influence of Chinese Romanesque literature on Vietnamese literature in Chinese and in Vietnamese written in chữ nôm, then in romanized script, laying special stress on this last case since it is characterized by a movement for the translation of Chinese novels, all the more noteworthy as the purpose of the French in substituting romanized script for Chinese characters was essentially to cut the Vietnamese off from Chinese culture.

Indonesian translations from Chinese sources appears to have been growing, judging from the increasing number of references to such texts, and the publication in 1981 of Claudine Salmon's voluminous catalogue (Literature in Malay by the Chinese of Indonesia (Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1981)) has provided researchers with an invaluable guide in this area. Much of the attention devoted to this genre of printed Malay books has focused either on their role in stimulating the development of a popular, romanized Malay literature in late nineteenth century Indonesia, or on their value as sociological “evidence” of the thinking of the Indonesian Chinese community in this period. Insofar as the texts themselves are concerned, the method of analysis has been a thematic one, with the underlying assumption that from a literary point of view, the translations do not differ significantly from their original Chinese texts. The question naturally arises as to whether a thematic analysis will tell us very much about Malay literature and Indonesian Chinese society if the literature is purely Chinese. In this study therefore we have attempted to examine more carefully the relationship between the Malay translations and their Chinese sources.

1. The Six Translations and the Problems They Present

Faced with such a thicket of relatively unexplored literature (Salmon lists 759 titles, not counting reprints, for translations from Chinese works), we have been drawn to investigate six translations into Malay/Indonesian of a short tale from the Chinese novel Xiyou ji (“Record of a Westward Journey”), a work which has enjoyed an immense popularity in China for several centuries. The tale, which comprises three chapters of the 100-chapter Chinese novel, relates the purported journey into Hades of the Tang emperor Taizong (Li Shimin) to answer charges before the underworld tribunal in the case of a slain dragon king.

A Malay translation of the entire 100-chapter Xiyou ji appears to have been completed only once in Indonesia (See Ijoe, Yap Goan Ho, Batavia and Semarang, 1895–96, 24 vols, 1924 p.) although this massive work was later reprinted in its entirety (Kho Tjeng Bie & Co, Batavia, 1919, 24 vols, 1886 p.). The passages containing the tale of Taizong's journey to the underworld were then excerpted directly from this text and published as an 82-page booklet in 1920 (text B below).

In human history, cultural exchanges have been a constant and normal phenomenon. The history of human civilization of thousands of years has proved that every nation, irrespective of its size and length of history, has made its own contributions to human culture in varying degrees of depth and breadth. Being a recipient and a giver at the same time, each country takes in foreign culture and sends out its own, thus enriching the common treasure house of human culture as well as its own culture.

I believe that the study of the history of human cultural exchanges is a branch of learning of tremendous significance. It will enable the people of different countries to realize what they have received and what they have offered, whereby they can, on the one hand, strengthen their own confidence and, on the other, form a correct understanding that men should help each other and that no country whatsoever can be, will be or has ever been isolated. Such an insight will greatly help to promote the friendship and understanding between countries and peoples and to strengthen their determination to safeguard world peace and forge ahead courageously toward a still greater goal.

As far as China is concerned, it is a country in the Asian continent with a history of thousands of years. Our people, valiant, industrious and intelligent, have created a culture of great brilliance. Our country is among the few in the world with ancient civilizations. What is most noteworthy is that our cultural traditions, despite the historical vicissitudes, have never been broken off. Culturally, we are also a recipient and a giver, having made brilliant contributions to the human culture as well as enriched our own. But for the several great inventions of the Chinese people, one could hardly imagine what the development of human culture would be like today.

Historically, our cultural exchanges with foreign countries followed a long and tortuous course. As for foreign culture, some of it was adopted by ourselves and some introduced by foreigners; as for Chinese culture, some of it was taken out by foreigners and some offered by ourselves. During the later period of feudal society, Western colonialists kept flocking in and the Chinese people, groaning under both national and foreign oppressions, lived in an abyss of misery.

The diffusion of Chinese literature amongst the Mongols took place in two stages. The first of these goes back to the fourteenth century, when the Yuan rulers had the Chinese Classics translated into Mongolian for the edification of their subjects. While the Four Books (Daxue, Zhongyong, Lunyu, Mengzi)were still being reprinted in the 1920s by Temgetü (on whom see below), it was the “Classic of Filial Piety” — Xiaojing — which really took root. Already translated into Xianbi (or Sienpi)for the benefit of Tabgač youth toward the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century, it was later also popular among the Tangut XiXia (or Si-Hia)and the Mongols. Thus it inspired both written and oral Mongolian aphoristic literature and has left traces throughout the entire body of Mongolian popular literature.

The second stage, that of the influence of Chinese novels, only goes back at the earliest to the seventeenth century, when the Mongols surrendered to the Manchus. And its development is closely linked to the expansion of the Qing rule in the Southern steppes from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. It is, therefore, an inherently Inner Mongolian phenomenon, which was transmitted to other regions, especially to Urga (now Ulan-Bator), mainly by Southern Mongolian emigrants. Mongolian studies have only recently discovered the enormous variety of themes and styles in this type of literature.

The first novel to be taken up by the Mongols was the Xiyou ji, “The Journey to the West”, which was then considered to be a Buddhis work. Afterwards, translated literature grew away from the monasteries, but it was not until the publication of books was no longer a monopoly of the monasteries or of governmental offices that it started to be printed. Chinese prose novels and works of fiction gave rise to two theoretically different, but in fact related styles of Mongolian literature. On the one hand, there are the more or less freely translated Chinese novels, circulated in written versions (printed belatedly).

These translated novels have given rise, since the nineteenth century, to new novels of manners, put by their Mongolian author into an imaginary Chinese surrounding, so that they would look like a translation from the Chinese.

Translation of Chinese literary works into the Thai language can be divided roughly into three periods as follows:

1. From the time of King Rama I to King Rama V (1782–1910).

2. From the time of King Rama VI to King Rama VIII (1910–46).

3. From the time of the present reign up to now.

In the first period, the Chinese literary works that were translated into Thai were mainly historical romances. There are altogether thirty translations done from the time of King Rama I to the time of King Rama V. The very first translation from Chinese is “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” which was translated in the reign of King Rama I. The translation of Chinese historical romances into Thai in the reign of King Rama I to King Rama III were all done under royal patronage, while those translated in the reign of King Rama IV and V were under the patronage of high-ranking royal officials.

In the second period, translations from Chinese were those of historical stories and novels, and they were done under the patronage of the owners of publishing houses or newspaper editors. Translations of Chinese historical novels were first published in series in Thai newspapers in 1921 and were very popular among the readers. Some newspapers such as Srikrung published at least one series or sometimes three in every issue. When Thailand got involved in the Second World War, the newspapers were closed down, and that was also the end of the translations from Chinese novels published in these newspapers.

In the third period, translations from Chinese works were no longer historical stories only. Translators who knew English started translating works of Chinese that were already translated into English or works written by Western writers about China. Pearl S. Buck's works were highly popular among the Thai readers. Thai translations of Buck's works are numerous; for example, The First Wife, The Mother, The Young Revolutionist, East Wind, West Wind, The Good Earth, Big Tooth Yang, etc. Then there were translations of Chinese short stories, such as those of Lin Yutang and some other writers.

The most popular among translations from Chinese were those of the wuxia type.

Over the centuries some of the Chinese emigrants who left home hoping to return to their native land one day, for various reasons settled for good in the countries of the “South Seas” and married local women. Their descendants gradually formed mixed communities which sometimes tended to live a self-contained life, cut off from the local population because they were grouped in certain districts in the towns, and from the Chinese who arrived after them and whose economic situation was incomparably more wretched than that of the merchant communities. The members of these communities, known as Baba and sometimes also as Peranakan all over the Malay Peninsula, were from Malacca. Throughout the nineteenth century they migrated to other centres in Malaya, in particular to Penang and Singapore, where they became the trading elite, until they were supplanted at the turn of the century by merchants from China. One characteristic of this society of Chinese descent was that it often gave up using written, and even spoken, Chinese and turned to Malay instead.

Many studies have been made of the historical, sociological and linguistic aspects of the communities, but apparently until the late 1970s nobody had raised the question of how, and to what extent these communities felt the need to create a literature in Malay. In 1969 Png Pohseng, in an article entitled “The Straits Chinese in Singapore: A Case of Local Identity and Socio-cultural Accomodation” avoided the question, when he wrote:

The translation of the Sanguo or “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” mentioned here was the work of Chan Kim Boon, a Chinese from Penang; it was in thirty volumes and appeared between 1892 and 1896. In our view, the scale of this translation, which was 4,622 pages long, suggests that a reading public existed and that the question of “Sino-Malay” literature, consisting either of translations or original works, cannot be brushed aside so quickly.

Western scholars have devoted a number of studies to traditional Chinese fiction, but on the whole they seem to have approached it as an entity inside the political borders of China. Few have attempted to cross these boundaries and reflect on the impact of Chinese fiction in neighbouring countries. Yet, the Chinese language and Chinese script have been used for centuries in countries like Korea, Japan and Vietnam, and Chinese literature began to spread in these areas very early, beginning with the Confucian classics, Buddhist sūtras and Chinese poetry.

In dealing with European literature, scholars have always been eager to trace the various borrowings and dwell on the influence of new genres on the development of the different national literatures, but up to now this comparative approach has hardly ever been applied to the cultural region of the Far East. The Tamkang Review (Taibei 1970–), apparently the only journal in English devoted to comparative study of Chinese and foreign literatures, did publish a special issue directing researchers’ attention to the influence of Chinese literature in Korea, Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines. Two articles raise the question of the literary relationships between China on the one hand and Korea and the Philippines on the other; two others focus on the adaptation and imitation of particular Chinese novels. Of course the specialists in Korean, Japanese, Mongolian and Manchu literature have dealt with the problems of Chinese borrowings and influences for decades. They contributed the greatest part of the extant literature on the subject in both Western and Asian languages.

We thought it would be enlightening to study how traditional Chinese fiction penetrated into neighbouring countries, how it was received and eventually how it inspired local writers. In the Sinicized countries where the local elite was trained in classical Chinese and could more or less understand colloquial Chinese, this kind of fiction was read in the original text. However, very early, local scholars and writers translated, adapted and even imitated Chinese fiction. er country.

G. Schlegel and J. Brandes were probably the first Western scholars to have paid attention to the development of Malay and Javanese writings by the Chinese. In a short article published in 1902 Brandes attempted to survey a few Javanese and Malay translations derived from Chinese works. In so doing he pointed out the fact that at least two Javanese translations namely Sam Pek Ing Tae (Liang Shanbo yu Zhu Yingtai, 1873)and Lo Tong (Luo Tong sao bei or “Luo Tong Clears the North”, 1881)had preceded their Malay counterparts which appeared in 1885 and 1884–87 respectively. This assertion is corroborated by the fact that the oldest Javanese translation which has so far been traced (under the title of Li Si Bin)is dated 1858 (see Plate 24), whereas the first in Malay, entitled Koran Giok Lek, did not appear until 1877

Given the paucity of information on the Javanized Peranakan Chinese society, it is rather difficult to provide an outline of the acculturation process of these Chinese families of long standing in Java. We know virtually nothing about the way these descendants of Chinese acquired their knowledge of Javanese Belles-lettres. A brief article by Liem Thian Joe (born in East Java c. 1895, died 1963)says that up to the beginning of this century many Peranakan children, who had been trained in private schools run by Javanese, were familiar with Javanese literature.

We can assume that some of them were simultaneously taught Chinese by private teachers and consequently were also able to read texts written in that language as could Tjoa Tjoe Koan (born in Solo in 1861 and died there in 1905). Tjoa declared in 1901 that since 1877 he had enjoyed reading newspapers in Chinese, in Javanese written with aksara, and in Malay written with Latin or Arabic script. He was much concerned with the progress of the Dutch Indies, as well as with that of the Chinese, and in 1903 he decided to found his own printing-works (Tjoa Tjoe Koan Sien Iem Kiok)and launched successively two papers.

In a previous study on the literature in Malay by the Chinese of Indonesia we listed no less than 759 translations from the Chinese (not counting reprints)which spanned nearly a century (from the 1870s until the 1960s). For the same period we counted only some 233 Chinese-Malay translations of Western works. The comparison of these two figures proves that the Chinese of Indonesia had in the long run, a deeper interest in the culture of their motherland. If we exclude didactic and religious works, the great majority of these translations consisted of novels and short stories. Since most of these were translated and published in Java where until the 1920s Sundanese and more especially Javanese were still largely used as written and spoken languages, we are confronted here with the question of the spread of Malay language among the urban population of that island, and especially among the Chinese.

In spite of the fact that Chinese communities may be traced in Java and Sumatra at least since the beginning of the fifteenth century very little is known of their cultural life. In the seventeenth century, the Dong xi yang kao mentions Chinese who acted as secretaries and interpreters for the Sultan of Banten (West Java), which suggests that some of them, at least, learned the local language, very likely Javanese, fairly quickly. Another text dating from the end of the eighteenth century says that in Java a group of descendants of Chinese existed who had been converted to Islam and the Javanese way of life and were thoroughly acquainted with the local language:

A large number of Chinese colloquial novels were imported into Japan during the Edo period (1603–1867)and they had much influence upon the literature of the age, because before the Edo period the only foreign literature known to Japanese was Chinese literature (with one exception: a missionary translated Aesop's Fables into Japanese in the latter half of the sixteenth century).

Of course, during the Meiji period (1868–1912)and after, Chinese colloquial novels were still introduced and translated, in quantity and quality not inferior to those of the Edo period. But by that time European literature had become more influential than Chinese literature in Japan, so we will deal here with the colloquial novel during the Edo period, when its influence was especially important.

1. Conditions under which Books Were Imported and the Problem of Language Barrier

Chinese colloquial novels began to enter Japan in the middle of the eighteenth century although their heyday in China was the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. In the Edo period, the Japanese practised a policy of national isolation. Trade with Spain and Portugal was banned in order to prohibit Christianity. Only the Chinese and the Dutch, who were not engaged in missionary work, were permitted to trade, and then only in the port of Nagasaki.

The Tokugawa government, however, tolerated the importation of books, except for books dealing with Christianity. So the people eagerly sought for books from China and Holland which were their only links with the outside world. While most books from Holland dealt with technology, those from China covered a wide range, including literature and even colloquial novels which were thought little of in China, but had great influence on Japanese literature. We may get an idea of the various kinds of books imported during the Edo period by checking the catalogues of imported books. We can also make a survey of the Chinese novels imported during the same period by using the Shôsetsu jii, a dictionary of colloquial Chinese published in 1784.

The Japanese people formed their culture under Chinese influence, through books and artifacts, not through Chinese people.

Comparative study of Chinese and Korean novels was first attempted by Kim T'aejun, author of Chosŏn sosŏl sa “A History of the Korean Novel” (1930), and in 1955 was taken up again in Han'guk sosŏre kkich'in chungguk sosŏrŭi yŏnghyang, “The influence of Chinese novels on Korean novels”, by Pak Sŏngui. Yi Chaesu again took up the challenge of this question in 1956. These all consistently probed the question of how influence was cast on Korean novels by such works as Sanguo zhi yanyi, “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms”, Shuihu zhuan, “The Water Margin Story”, Jian deng xinhua, “New Tales for which One Trims the Lamp”, Lienü zhuan, “Tales of Women”, Xiyou ji, “A Journey to the West”, etc.

In 1964 Chŏng Naedong proposed as a methodology that, in the comparison of Korean and Chinese novels, vocabulary, style, content and structure should be examined. Subsequently Chŏn Inch'o considered the romances of the Tang period, Yi Hyesun compared the presentation of chivalry in the works of the two countries, and Yi Nŭngu compiled a bibliography of the Sou shen ji, “Searching Out the Gods”, Taiping guangji, “Extensive Records of the Grand Tranquillity Reign”, and the “Four Great Romances” (Shuihu zhuan, Sanguo zhi yanyi, Xiyou ji and Jin Ping Mei “The Golden Lotus”). Along with these, comparative studies of individual works were also attempted. Yi Kyŏngsŏn studied origins, development and influence more deeply in Samgukchi yŏnŭiŭi pigyo munhakchŏk yŏn'gu, “A Comparative Literary Study of Sanguo zhi yanyi”, and various other discussants succeeded in probing further, but the common tendency of these publications was to study chiefly borrowing and influence on the basis of the methods proposed in “Comparative Literature” by Van Tieghem, translated by the present writer (published Sinyangsa, 1959).

On the evening of 17 January 1982, before a large but makeshift bamboo and thatch theatre building in the palace square of Yogyakarta, Central Java, an aggressive gang of ticket touts was busy pushing tickets for the night's performance. Even at more than double the box-office prices, business was brisk. The performance was by the renowned ketoprak theatre company “Siswo Budoyo” from Tulungagung in East Java, and on this night the 2,000 patrons who packed the theatre would see one of the most popular stories in the ketoprak repertoire, the story of Sam Pek and Eng Tay. The audience was Javanese, the players were Javanese, the performance was in the Javanese language and the theatrical genre was that of ketoprak, a uniquely Javanese form in which plays on historical themes are acted in semi-realistic fashion with largely improvised dialogue on a proscenium stage to the accompaniment of gamelan music. But costumes and stage sets, although heavily Javanized, were still recognizably Chinese, and the story, for all its twists and turns, was still the celebrated Chinese romance of the butterfly lovers, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai.

Few folk romances are as widely known in China as that of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. The story is set during the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420) and it was certainly well known during the Tang dynasty (618–906). Although many of its most famous motifs were to appear later, already in Tang times the broad outline of the story as it is known today had been established. A Tang version of the story by Zhang Du is recorded in Lu Gong's survey of Liang-Zhu texts: “Yingtai a girl from the Zhu family of Shangyu, disguises herself as a boy and goes out to study. She becomes a schoolmate of Liang Shanbo of Guiji. Yingtai returns home and two years later Shanbo comes to visit her. It is only then that he discovers Yingtai is a girl. He goes home broken-hearted and begs his parents to ask for her hand in marriage. But he is too late, Yingtai has already been engaged to a boy of the Ma family.

Although considered to be one of the jewels of Further India, Cambodia has been influenced by China in a variety of ways: through Chinese immigration and the spread of techniques as well as in a way that can broadly be described as “cultural”. Naturally, the Cambodian language has recorded this penetration, for example by absorbing several hundreds of words of Chinese origin. One would therefore expect to find the stamp of a similar influence upon Cambodian literature. Yet, paradoxically, this influence on classical literature can barely be perceived through “hints and guesses”. For, although they are clearly discernible in the Cambodian texts, the themes of the Chinese merchant and of Chinese political power appear to reflect social and political realities rather than trends in inspiration or literary sensibility.

Given the state of research on the subject today, the traces of Chinese literary influence, if indeed they must be sought, can only be found either in a handful of little-known manuscripts dating from not earlier than the mid-nineteenth century, or else in a regional (in a sense, foreign)and short-lived genre of popular theatre that sprang up a few decades later.

In fact, it is only in the 1960s that the Chinese influence can unmistakably be seen to be direct, explicit and meaningful. This influence was then all the more palpable as it was found in popular-priced books, serialized novels and comics, that is to say, in literature of the liveliest and most widely read variety. Moreover, in contrast to the meagreness in the number of “Chinese-inspired” works published in earlier times, the output of the sixties was abundant and varied, and increasingly well received. Yet, and here is another paradox, specialists of contemporary Cambodian literature have rather ignored this class of literature while paying attention, for example, to the products of the French influence on Cambodian literature.

Our purpose here, therefore, is to return to the question by summing up what is known about the contribution of the Chinese influence to the development of Cambodian literature. We shall first describe the situation in the nineteenth century, then pinpoint the emergence of a Chinese-inspired literature during the first half of the twentieth century, and finally examine the contemporary wave of Chinese influence.