Fri, Jul 23, 2010 page2

• Professor's 'City of New North' finds little support

  SINBEI CITY An academic said his proposed name was easier to remember and could be shortened to CNN. Someone suggested calling it 'Sin Taipei City'

  • By Vincent Y. Chao / STAFF REPORTER, WITH STAFF WRITER
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  A proposal by an academic to call Sinbei City (新北市) “City of New North” has found little support among candidates running for the city council or netizens.

  In a letter to the media, Hsieh Shih-chung (謝世忠), an anthropology professor at National Taiwan University, expressed concern over the proposed English name of the new special municipality that is to emerge from the upgrading of Taipei County.

  At the moment, he said, the most prevalent suggestion he could find was “Xinbei City,” a simple transliteration using the Chinese Pinyin system. Hsieh said he thought this was unimaginative and failed to convey the spirit of the thing that it names.

  Saying that Taipei County has always played second fiddle to Taipei City, Hsieh said: “The imminent upgrade is a historic opportunity to divest itself of this secondary status; however, the decision to call it Xinbei merely reinforces the idea that it is just another city in north Taiwan, where an established metropolis already exists.”

  “Where the Chinese name fails to create any distance or feeling of independence from its older sibling, there is now the chance to redress the situation with the selection of the English name,” he said. “This is all the more important because the English name will be used internationally.”

  Hsieh suggested the name “City of New North,” adding it could be abbreviated to CNN.

  Placing it in the “New North” would remove it from the shadow of Taipei, he said, adding that it has the twin advantages of being attractive and easy to remember.

  It would also convey something of the character of the municipality and would be a point of pride for residents, he added.

  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Sinbei city councilor candidates were not impressed, however.

  “This translation doesn’t sound like it’s very readable,” said KMT candidate Chen Yi-chun (陳儀君), a former teacher of English.

  Instead, she supports the translation “New Taipei City” that has been advocated by both the KMT and DPP candidates for Sinbei City mayor, she said.

  “We want to convey the meaning that New Taipei City will overtake Taipei City,” she said.

  DPP candidate Eric Lee (李坤城) said he believed “New Taipei City” would be the best translation for the upgraded municipality.

  “For a translation, ‘New Taipei City’ is the best. Everybody knows the word Taipei as it is an international city,” Lee said. “As a result, everybody will know the meaning of New Taipei right away.”

  Another DPP candidate, Lee Wan-yu (李婉鈺), said she did not think “City of New North” would accurately reflect Sinbei City’s upgraded status. Instead, she proposed that the city’s name be translated “Sin Taipei City.”

  “The [many] foreigners I’ve talked to ... think that Sin Taipei City is very easy to understand and it also has a connection to Taipei City,” she said.

  Online, Kaishao wrote on the social networking service Plurk.com: “This is such a stupid creative idea.”

  “It’s a commonly accepted practice around the world to phonetically translate a city name in a foreign language,” blogger Yslperso wrote. “If we are to translate Sinbei City as ‘City of New North,’ why not change Tainan to ‘City of Southern Taiwan,’ and Taichung to ‘City of Central Taiwan’?”

  ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LOA IOK-SIN
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