Yiong Cong-ziin (楊長鎮), director of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Hakka affairs department, yesterday urged the government to conduct a thorough review of road signs for Hakka place names, saying they are often written using incorrect characters that significantly alter their meaning.
“Driving around Miaoli County, you will find road signs set up by either the county government or the Directorate-General of Highways using the wrong characters for these Hakka places,” Yiong said by telephone. “This shows the government’s lack of care and a disrespect for local culture.”
What’s more, these wrong signs often alter the original meaning of the names of those places, with this wrong information being passed on to visitors and the younger generation, he said.
Photo: Peng Chien-li, Taipei Times
“For example, the Xie’ai Ancient Trail (楔隘古道) in Miaoli’s Shitan Township (獅潭) has been written as ‘Xi’ai Ancient Trail’ (錫隘古道) for decades,” said Yiong, who is also running as the DPP’s legislative candidate in Miaoli County.
“‘Xie’ai’, or ‘shiap-ai’ in Hakka, refers to a supportive post placed between major defensive posts along the boundary between the Aboriginal domain and non--Aboriginal domain in the past when ethnic tensions were high,” he said.
However, writing it out as “xi’ai” (錫隘) might lead some people to think that it used to be a tin mine because the character “xi” (錫) means “tin,” Yiong said.
There’s also a mountain in Dahu Township (大湖) called Yaoposhan (鷂婆山), meaning “mountain of eagles,” because it’s a place frequented by eagles, he said.
“Yaopo” is pronounced as “yo’po” in Hakka.
However, the official road sign uses the character “yao” (耀) instead of “yao” (鷂), which is pronounced the same way in Mandarin, but are two different characters that differ in meaning, Yiong said.
“The government should make an effort to survey all Hakka place names and correct all the mistakes to better preserve local culture,” he said.
At a separate setting, Chen Ban (陳板), a long-time researcher and advocate for the preservation of Hakka culture, said that he fully supported the idea that official signs should carry the original and correct place names, as a way to pass on the culture and history of a place.
Chen said he heads a project that has been conducting a survey of Hakka place names for six years now for the Council for Hakka Affairs.
“I would like to call on the council to take action and change these road signs, especially as we’ve been doing this project for six years now,” he said.
Eight restaurants in Taiwan yesterday secured a one-star rating from the Michelin Guide Taiwan for the first time, while three one-star restaurants from last year’s edition were promoted to two stars. Forty-three restaurants were awarded one star this year, including 34 in Taipei, five in Taichung and four in Kaohsiung. Hosu (好嶼), Chuan Ya (川雅), Sushi Kajin (鮨嘉仁), aMaze (心宴), La Vie by Thomas Buhner, Yuan Yi (元一) and Frassi in Taipei and Front House (方蒔) in Kaohsiung received a one-star rating for the first time. Hosu is known for innovative Taiwanese dishes, while Chuan Ya serves Sichuan cuisine and aMaze specializes
Taitung County is to launch charter flights to Malaysia at the end of this year, after setting up flights to Vietnam and Thailand, the Taitung County Government said yesterday. The new charter flight services, provided by low-cost carrier Batik Air Malaysia, would be part of five-day tour packages for visits to Taitung County or Malaysia. The Batik Air charter flight, with about 200 seats, would take Malaysian tourists to Taitung on Dec. 30 and then at 12:35pm return to Kuala Lumpur with Taiwanese tourists. Another charter flight would bring the Taiwanese home on Jan. 3 next year, arriving at 5:30pm, before taking the
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
RSS