Names do matter
Before the US presidential election, many Americans, including some leading Republicans, protested against Donald Trump with the slogan “Dump Trump.” After the election, the Taipei Times had “Trump triumphs” as its headline. Another simple headline is “Trump trumps.”
Like Taiwanese, Americans called for “letting others try to do it” after eight years of the same administration. Beginning on Jan. 20, the US (“beautiful country”) and Taiwan (Formosa, or “beautiful island”) will have another thing in common: their ruling parties controlling the entire legislature. Hopefully the US will help Taiwan break through the China-imposed international isolation from economic, health, police, aviation safety/security and other activities by 23.5 million Taiwanese.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was given the official title of “the core.” The “core” can mean a fruit core, which nobody likes, or a grinder core, which performs a hard job without receiving any gratitude.
Two Hong Kong lawmakers elected by the public were barred from taking their oath by China’s National People’s Congress. This mismatch in people’s actions has caused protests.
The meeting between then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Xi in Singapore last year can be described as a “911” event, because the second letter of Ma’s given name means “nine” and XI in [Roman numerals] means “11.”
When dealing with Taiwan, without any precondition, Xi should follow his own name, which literally means “learning how to be in virtual peace.”
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has a given name that means “English,” but she misspelled “Thailand” by omitting the letter “h.” This is understandable since she has been extremely busy in taking care of so many things in Taiwan. Anyway, even some Americans confuse Taiwan and Thailand.
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
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