Tantzu? Where’s that?
Catherine Ly claimed that we don’t need Hanyu Pinyin (Letters, Sept. 24, page 8). She said, for one thing, that foreigners “won’t be able to pronounce Zhongxiao Fuxing any better than Chunghsiao Fuhsing.”
This is demonstrably not true: For one thing, the syllables Zhong and Chong become Chung in Wade-Giles while Jiang and Qiang become Chiang. I rarely ever see the apostrophes from Wade Giles anymore and, in any case, foreigners are more familiar with Hanyu Pinyin and would have no idea what the apostrophes meant anyway. A foreigner learning Chinese would be able to make himself understood much better if signs used Hanyu Pinyin rather than Wade-Giles.
She also claimed that: “For those who know Chinese, using Wade-Giles is not a problem.” But again, this is not true. For starters, very few foreigners can claim to “know Chinese.” Those of us who have been here even several years are still learners and can’t claim to be fluent: Seeing some signs in Hanyu Pinyin and some signs in Wade-Giles is only going to confuse us. The signs should be consistent and the best system would be that which is used both internationally and in our textbooks for learning Chinese, namely Hanyu Pinyin.
The problem is especially frustrating for people who are new to Taiwan. A friend will tell me that she is living in “Tantzu” and I will ask, “Where’s that? Do you mean Tanzi?” The situation is no doubt made worse by the fact that a lot of local place names are likely to be pronounced in Taiwanese rather than Mandarin and the local signs might reflect that. This is a problem because the names must not only satisfy the criteria of foreigners being able to pronounce them correctly, but must also agree with the names that appear on maps. How can we find our way around when places can have three different Romanized spellings?
Finally, why is it a problem if “China and Taiwan are getting closer not only economically and politically, but also culturally?” The same phenomenon has happened in English speaking countries thanks to TV and movies: When I was growing up, it would have been unthinkable for a series of movies about a young English wizard to become popular in North America. Similarly, young people in Taiwan and China are being exposed to each other’s culture through music, movies and the Internet.
My students tell me they have no trouble reading simplified characters and their counterparts in China are also exposed to traditional characters. A lot of students also use simplified characters as a form of shorthand when they write notes to each other. This is by no means a threat to traditional culture. Simplified characters have no better chance of replacing traditional characters in Taiwan than cursive writing has of replacing the printed Roman alphabet.
Martin Phipps
Taichung
Which Romanization system to use in Taiwan is the flip side of which phonetic system should be used in teaching English to Taiwanese. Communication, not scoring political points, should be the goal.
Wade-Giles, more useful for native German speakers than for native English speakers, is too often misapplied. The apostrophe is usually dropped, confusing readers as to whether, for example, ch (pronounced similarly to the English “ch”) or ch’ (pronounced similarly to the English “j”) is intended. The umlaut over the u, likewise, is often dropped, adding to the confusion.
Hanyu Pinyin is patterned after the Russian phonetic system. I can sympathize with the late US president Gerald Ford, who, in a formal speech, pronounced the name of then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) as “Ting [with a hard ‘T’] Ex-i-ow Ping.” Even with its obvious shortcomings, Hanyu Pinyin is an improvement over Wade-Giles.
English is spoken as a first or second language by more people than any other language in history. For English speakers who aren’t Russian or German, the most practical Romanization is the Yale Romanization favored at National Taiwan University.
For those who expect to be in Taiwan for a few years, one writing system beats all others hands down: the Chinese phonetic system commonly called bopomofo. A few years ago, I encountered a sign written in Chinese characters, Romanization and bopomofo.
I thought: “I wish all signs were like that. It would be much simpler for visual learners both to understand the signs and learn the language.”
Just as Chinese phonetics is a more reliable (though not always the most practical) aid to understanding Chinese characters, English phonetics is more reliable than international phonetics.
International phonetics fits Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. The symbols ay, ai, e and i are pronounced as in the words ay, bailar, peso and pista rather than the English day, sail, be and size. Taiwanese commonly mispronounce unfamiliar, though simple, phonetically sound words such as bay (as if it should rhyme with sky), and I’ve always suspected it was because of the shortcomings of international phonetics.
Whether we are transliterating from Chinese or teaching English, the written form should be the most phonetically true to standard spoken forms in that language, to the extent that this task can be managed.
Jerry Mills
Shilin, Taipei City
Toxic China: Tick. Tick.
China and its companies are impatient to swim in the adult pool, but many of its industries are still in their infancy, and their quality standards are far below those required to engage in commerce around the world.
For now, the adult pool of global commerce must continue to be off limits to many Chinese industries, because their products are or may be toxic and oversight is nil. A front page Taipei Times article reported: “A senior Chinese agriculture official ... conceded [the unsupervised milk-gathering system was] ‘out of control,’ and has led to abuses” (“Chinese official says dairy industry is ‘out of control,’” Sept. 24, page 1).
Cheap often means “more dangerous,” or worse, “toxic.” Beguiled by lower costs, global companies have sacrificed their customers’ health and safety to save a few pennies. This must stop. Companies can survive with smaller profits, but reputation is difficult to restore, and it is very difficult to survive a reputation for toxic products.
Moreover, labeling requirements allow Chinese parts, components and ingredients to find their way into millions of products without disclosure. If I drink a can of “American Coffee” in Taipei, is that coffee laced with toxic milk or milk products from China? The label doesn’t say. It may say “milk,” but it doesn’t say “derived from Chinese milk products probably laced with melamine.”
Consumers outside China must have the right to reject goods that contain or are derived from Chinese products or ingredients. China may complain, but until it can prove that its safety record is sufficient, this remains the right of customers throughout the world. China can force its own people to use toxic products, but it cannot force the rest of the world to do so. This is the nature of international commerce.
People form opinions about products every day when they go to the store. They buy product A because the quality is better. They buy product B because it is cheaper. They believe the quality of product B is not as good as product A, but they believe product B will not harm them. They definitely believe product B will not make their baby sick. They don’t buy product C, because it comes from a country they don’t trust, and they don’t want to take a chance that it will make them sick, or worse. China is not the only country on that list. There are many.
The reason for these opinions is that different countries have different standards, different notions of quality, different governmental regulation and different laws. Customers want the freedom to choose.
The thing about globalization is that it brings people and companies from far away together, subjecting companies from across the globe to the opinions, tastes and regulations of other cultures and peoples. In the past few years, China has bungled its reputation with lax regulations, poor oversight and deep-rooted corruption.
Mature nations also face these issues. If they want to trade, they need to bring their goods up to the quality standards of the places where they want sell their products. If not, people will reject their goods.
It will be a long time before people buy Chinese milk products. In fact, the result may be to cause many people throughout the world to eschew products that contain any Chinese ingredients — again. When a company has a product recall, it must begin the long road back to restoring consumer confidence. Governments must do the same.
China’s economic boom is based on international trade. If China wants to continue this, it will need to do all it can to ensure international consumers that its products are up to snuff. The only way a government can do this is with oversight, transparency, accountability and regulations that are enforced. In the past, China has responded to situations like this by executing a government department head or an executive. Execution does not solve the problem. In fact, it only highlights the problem and hides the facts.
In most countries, a transparent investigation would take place and those responsible would be required to publicly testify about what happened and why. This would lead to recommendations about fixing the problem and perhaps new regulations or laws.
Executing someone only makes everyone else involved fearful of taking responsibility for anything and closes the door on transparency. Perhaps that is China’s answer — to close the door on the problem until it can come up with a quick fix and then announce: “Everything is okay now.”
We are expected to believe this — until the next toxic product is discovered.
In China, there is no transparency and hence, no credibility. We don’t believe anything the Chinese government says. Lying is Beijing’s currency.
We need a new labeling system. I want to see labels that say “This product contains no Chinese products or ingredients, or products derived from Chinese products or ingredients.”
Then I can make an informed choice. It is the latter category, where products contain ingredients from China, that is the most dangerous, because the toxic elements are hidden from view. Latent. Silent. Like a ticking bomb. Tick. Tick.
Tainted dietary supplements, toxic cosmetics, tainted chicken, pork, shrimp, poison swordfish. 2007. Tick. Tick.
Cardboard buns with paper in place of pork. Tick. Tick. Toxic toys. 2007. Tick. Tick.
Chemical laced chairs. Sit and itch. 2008. Tick. Tick.
Pet food laced with Melamine. 2007. Poison pets, poison chicken feed and livestock feed. Tick. Tick.
Toxic milk products laced with Melamine. 2008. Tick. Tick.
What’s next?
LEE LONG-HWA
New York
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