Ma Ying-Saywhat? Jeou, is it? The good mayor spells his name according to some phonetic system that has yet to be invented. Or is it a Hong Kong colonial relic? Perhaps something of a colonial relic himself, the mayor would have us believe that to adopt the Tongyong system (通用拼音) would prevent Taiwan from "stepping out and marching into the international community."
As if Taiwan has not already stepped out into the international community.
As if it's for international friends to decide whether Chungli
As if foreign scholars, who think nothing of devoting years of their lives to mastering several thousand Chinese ciphers and all their idiosyncrasies, cannot be bothered to spend a few hours learning their variant phonetic renderings.
Ma maintains that the Tongyong system "has long since been rejected by foreigners." He seems to fear some kind of linguistic-based quarantine.
I was dining with old-time expat journalist Dennis X (that's "X" as in "Mr. X," not as in Deng Xiaoping
Dennis weighed in with a vote for "anything but Hanyu Pinyin
In fact, the obituary service has already been performed, by Jim Mann of the Los Angeles Times: "Deng Xiaoping, the late leader of China, is about to arrive in Taiwan. So is Jiang Zemin
Let it be admitted that not all foreigners land in Taiwan with a firm grounding in phonetic cryptography. But, since many will soon have instant internet access by the press of a wristwatch button, there will be ready-to-hand data banks for quick conversion.
In the meantime there's already a plethora of Websites available at the click of a mouse on your home or office PC. In addition to those offered by government and educational institutions. There are some very well-researched sites which provide useful background on how the different systems developed (such as www.edepot.com/taoroman.html), as well as tables providing the basic conversion rules.
Their explanation seems accurate as far as the major systems are concerned. But there are a couple of caveats, the major one being that Wade-Giles "remains [the] defacto system in Taiwan for personal names."
In fact, what we have is a butchered form that is anything but consistent.
Where Wade-Giles makes use of the umlaut and the apostrophe, our homegrown version does not: both
So, make no mistake about it, for Ma and rest of those in the unificationist camp, it is not a question of Hanyu Pinyin being superior -- otherwise why not spell his name Ma Yingjiu (
That is, a political question for the people over at the Foreign Ministry. We foreigners have been made the fall-guys in Ma's attempts to look "presidential."
After all, if Ma really had the interests of foreigners at heart, then why all this changing of street name spellings according -- apparently -- to the season of the year?
Lynn Miles is a freelance writer in Taipei.
There are moments in history when America has turned its back on its principles and withdrawn from past commitments in service of higher goals. For example, US-Soviet Cold War competition compelled America to make a range of deals with unsavory and undemocratic figures across Latin America and Africa in service of geostrategic aims. The United States overlooked mass atrocities against the Bengali population in modern-day Bangladesh in the early 1970s in service of its tilt toward Pakistan, a relationship the Nixon administration deemed critical to its larger aims in developing relations with China. Then, of course, America switched diplomatic recognition
The international women’s soccer match between Taiwan and New Zealand at the Kaohsiung Nanzih Football Stadium, scheduled for Tuesday last week, was canceled at the last minute amid safety concerns over poor field conditions raised by the visiting team. The Football Ferns, as New Zealand’s women’s soccer team are known, had arrived in Taiwan one week earlier to prepare and soon raised their concerns. Efforts were made to improve the field, but the replacement patches of grass could not grow fast enough. The Football Ferns canceled the closed-door training match and then days later, the main event against Team Taiwan. The safety
The National Immigration Agency on Tuesday said it had notified some naturalized citizens from China that they still had to renounce their People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizenship. They must provide proof that they have canceled their household registration in China within three months of the receipt of the notice. If they do not, the agency said it would cancel their household registration in Taiwan. Chinese are required to give up their PRC citizenship and household registration to become Republic of China (ROC) nationals, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. He was referring to Article 9-1 of the Act
The Chinese government on March 29 sent shock waves through the Tibetan Buddhist community by announcing the untimely death of one of its most revered spiritual figures, Hungkar Dorje Rinpoche. His sudden passing in Vietnam raised widespread suspicion and concern among his followers, who demanded an investigation. International human rights organization Human Rights Watch joined their call and urged a thorough investigation into his death, highlighting the potential involvement of the Chinese government. At just 56 years old, Rinpoche was influential not only as a spiritual leader, but also for his steadfast efforts to preserve and promote Tibetan identity and cultural
RSS