Rigel Kent

The nucleus of the story of Hikayat Hang Tuah was born during the Malaccan period in the 15th century, but its cytoplasm contains elements from Sejarah Melayu and the Johore Sultanate in mid 17th century. The final form of Hikayat Hang Tuah as we now know it was last edited probably in 1710s, 250 years away from the Malaccan period, 300 years away from now. Some web sources suggest that Hang Tuah was actually a Chinese, and recently a friend of mine raised the same question to me. I personally do not think Mr. Hang is a Chinese, although it is very inviting to think of "Hang" as a word of chinese origin, like what I postulated in the case of Hang Li Po . In fact, my family name was spelt as "Hang" instead of "Ang" during the time of my grandfather's father when he followed his boss Tan Kah Kee (陈嘉庚) to Nanyang. Now back to Hang Tuah, he is definitely a pseudo-character, probably loosely modelled after a real person - Laksamana Abdul Jamil . Abdu...

Some days ago, I chanced on a new book by Tunku Halim at MPH. The book title is "History of Malaysia: A Children's Encyclopedia" . As a check on the factual accuracy of the book, I turned to the Parameswara section to see what Tunku has to say about him. To my horror, I read: Parameswara was married to Hang Li Po. Tunku's statement is incorrect for the following reasons. 1. According to Sejarah Melayu, Hang Li Po was a Chinese princess married to Sultan Mansur Shah, not Parameswara. 2. Reputable historians in general doubt the historical existence of Hang Li Po, because the name of the princess cannot be found in the Chinese or Portuguese sources. It is only mentioned in Sejarah Melayu. And Sejarah Melayu is full of historical inaccuracies. Concerning the origin of the name of the Chinese princess, I offer the following explanation. The name "Hang" is easy, it is simply a transliteration of the word "汉", meaning Chinese, or the word could possibly...

The official emblem of the state of Malacca shows two light brown mouse deers flanking the tree of Malacca. This depiction, however, is rather problematic. If the emblem is meant to commemorate the brave Sang Kancil , as encountered by Parameswara in the Sejarah Melayu, then light brown is not the best color to use here. If you follow the Malay classic carefully, the Sang Kancil mentioned is white and not light brown. The relatively new The logo was unveiled when Malacca was declared Historical City on April 13, 2003 logo of the City Council of Malacca, however, correctly show the two mouse deers in white . On the other hand, the Sang Kancil story purported to explain the founding of Malacca could be a story modified from a folk-tale from Sri Lanka. This fact was first noted by R. O. Winstedt (1922) Two Legends of Malacca, Journal of Straits Branch of Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 85, p. 40. I was in the Za'ba Memorial Library , around...

We learned quite a great deal about Malacca in secondary school. We were taught, for examples, that Malacca was a great seaport during the 15th century which has attracted a lot of people to do business there, that the founder of this kingdom is an Indonesian prince called Parameswara, that Tun Perak is a wise prime minister, and so on. However, the standard history textbook pays extremely little attention on the connection between Malacca and China, despite the fact that Malacca is intricately related to Ming China. In 1403, Zhu Di 朱棣 became the third emperor of Ming Dynasty. One of the important decisions he made almost immediately after he ascended to the throne was to order a series of marine expeditions to the Indian Ocean. This famous series of expedition is, as you might already know, led by a muslim eunuch named Zheng He 鄭和. In October 1403, diplomatic emissaries were sent out to a lot of foreign countries. A eunuch named Yin Qing 尹庆 was sent to Malacca 满剌加, bringing wi...