随 缘

Category: Reading

  • Why Mongolia ? Blame Kwee Ceng

    I didn’t go to Mongolia because of a travel list. I went because of a book my father bought me when I was a child.

    He found it at Kramat, in an Ejaan Lama (old spelling) book, the kind where the “j” is still “dj”. 1

    The title was Sia Tiauw Eng Hiong, which most of the world now knows as The Legend of the Condor Heroes, by Louis Cha (Chin Yung). The names in my copy were in Hokkien, so the hero was Kwee Ceng, not Guo Jing as he is in Mandarin. To me he will always be Kwee Ceng.2

    A boy raised on the steppe

    In the novel, Kwee Ceng grows up in Mongolia from early childhood into his teens, living with his mother in a yurt. He becomes sworn brother (anda) to Tolui, the son of Genghis Khan and the future father of Kublai Khan.3 Genghis Khan promises Kwee Ceng in marriage to his daughter, Gochin/Huazheng. I read those chapters over and over, and I imagined a huge sky, endless grass, and a life that moved with the seasons.

    Betamax from Jatinegara

    Later came the 1980s TV series, on rented Betamax tapes from a shop in Jatinegara. Wong Yat Wa played Kwee Ceng, and the late Ang Mei Ling played Oey Yong.

    I think the above is the best version of LoCH, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_the_Condor_Heroes_(1983_TV_series)

    Why the festival felt familiar

    The novel’s title means “shooting the eagle,” from the scene where Kwee Ceng brings down two great birds with a single arrow. Decades later I stood at the Golden Eagle Festival in Bayan Olgii, where nobody shoots eagles. The hunters ride out with eagles on their arms. It is the same drama, in reverse. I also thought of the white eagles that Kwee Ceng and Gochin keep in the story.

    In every version of the series, there will be Kwee Ceng pose with arrow.

    This is Hu Ge version. (2008):

    Ci Sa version (2026):

    What is real and what is not

    Because this blog will mix history and fiction, I’ll mark the line clearly in every post.

    • Real: Genghis Khan, Tolui, and Kublai Khan, plus the world of the Mongol tribes and the campaigns to the west.
    • Invented by Louis Cha: Kwee Ceng himself, Gochin, and the friendship and romance that hold the story together.
    • One more caution: the eagle hunters in Bayan Olgii are mostly ethnic Kazakh, not Mongol. Hunting with eagles is a Kazakh Altai tradition.

    What’s coming

    Next, I’ll write about my adventures in Mongolia between 26 September and 8 October 2026. The story starts with the road from Jakarta to Ulaanbaatar and the long bus ride to Bayan Olgii. After that come the eagle hunter family in Tsengel, the Altai mountains, the Golden Eagle Festival, and finally Ulaanbaatar, with museums and all.

    If you have ever read these books or watched the series, tell me which one stayed with you the most.

    1. ↩︎
    2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_the_Condor_Heroes ↩︎
    3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan ↩︎
    Why My Old Book Spells Rajawali with a ‘dj’

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  • Why My Old Book Spells Rajawali with a ‘dj’

    Look at the cover of this book. The title is Sia Tiauw Eng Hiong, and the subtitle says Memanah Burung Radjawali, “Shooting the Eagle.” Today, an Indonesian would write that last word as rajawali. The “dj” is a fossil, and it tells you roughly when this book was printed.

    It turns out Indonesian has gone through several spelling systems in the last century, and you can date an old book by the letters alone.

    Generation one: Van Ophuijsen (1901)

    The first official system was designed by a Dutch scholar, Charles van Ophuijsen, and it was written for Dutch eyes. That is why the “u” sound was written oe, as in Dutch. Soekarno, boekoe, roemah. The consonants also followed Dutch habits: dj, tj, j for the “y” sound, nj, sj. 1

    Generation two: the Republican spelling (1947)

    After independence, the “oe” was dropped and replaced with a plain u. Soekarno became Sukarno. But the consonants stayed the same, so djalan and tjinta were still written the old way. My book belongs to this generation: “Burung” has a normal u, but “Radjawali” still has its dj.

    Generation three: EYD (1972)

    In 1972 Indonesia introduced the Ejaan yang Disempurnakan (the “Perfected Spelling”), usually shortened to EYD. It removed the last Dutch habits, and it came with a Malaysian counterpart so the two countries could share one system. 2

    Here is the full comparison:

    SoundVan Ophuijsen (1901)Republican (1947)EYD (1972)
    uoe (boekoe)u (buku)u
    jdj (djalan)dj (djalan)j (jalan)
    ctj (tjinta)tj (tjinta)c (cinta)
    yj (jang)j (jang)y (yang)
    nynj (njanji)nj (njanji)ny (nyanyi)
    sysj (sjarat)sj (sjarat)sy (syarat)
    khch (chusus)ch (chusus)kh (khusus)

    A few more details

    • The 1901 system also used apostrophes for glottal stops, as in ma’af.
    • Under the Republican spelling, repeated words could be written with a “2”, like anak2 for anak-anak. You can still see this in old handwriting and in text messages today.
    • The letters f, v, and z were officially recognised as part of the Indonesian alphabet in the 1972 reform.

    How to date an old book

    If you find “oe” in a book, it was probably printed before 1947. If you find a normal “u” but still see “dj” or “tj”, it is probably between 1947 and 1972. If it has “j” and “c” like we write today, it is from 1972 or later. This is only a rough rule, because printers did not always switch on the same day, but it is a good first clue.

    The names are in Hokkien, too

    The spelling of the names is another layer. In my childhood the hero is Kwee Ceng, the Hokkien reading of the characters that Mandarin speakers pronounce Guo Jing (郭靖). Indonesian translators of that era, many of them Chinese-Indonesian, used Hokkien because that was the dialect most of their readers spoke at home. The title itself, Sia Tiauw Eng Hiong, is the same phrase as the Mandarin Shè Diāo Yīngxióng (射鵰英雄)