I don’t think the standard for measuring time should be in minutes and hours, but unfortunately I have a hard time convincing people of this.
Go Hobart! There is no reason Taiwan should not adopt its own romanization scheme to highlight its separate identity.
Well of course there are reasons. You might disagree with them, but there are lots of reasons. Haven’t you been reading the posts in this thread? :? 
Only if they’re really really really stupid.
But obviously if we’re trying to cater to really stupid people we should adopt Tonyong.
So much stupidity!!!
That’s what pisses me off about Tongyong and the idiots who support it. It’s so damn stupid.
brian
Feiren - I’ve met you and you didn’t seem stupid then. I hope you’re being sarcastic or something.
There’s no reason Taiwan shouldn’t cover itself in chocalate sauce, call itself a donut and invite the lepracauns to tea.
Brian
[quote=“Brian”]There’s no reason Taiwan shouldn’t cover itself in chocalate sauce, call itself a donut and invite the lepracauns to tea.
Brian
[/quote]
Now who’s being stupid? You weren’t supposed to mention that until NEXT Wednesday. Now you’ve gone and spoiled the surprise. 
Hobart, the only possible justification for supporting Tongyong Pinyin is political – i.e. that it is good to differentiate Taiwan from China in this respect. But the benefits are only local and only among those in Taiwan who care about such a difference. Internationally, there aren’t any benefits because Taiwan, as one of my friends points out to me all the time, is creating a difference that creates inconveniece for people from other countries.
Forget the tourists for a minute and whether Hanyu Pinyin would be of help to them. Consider:
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When people are looking for information on China / Taiwan on the Web in the future, they are far more likely to use Hanyu Pinyin than Tongyong Pinyin. Wham, Taiwan will be ever more isolated.
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If you are a foreign company doing business in Asia, most of the mail you send that has romanized addresses is likely to go to China and not Taiwan. And the bulk of mail going to China is only going to rise. With Tongyong, you’ll need to hire and train staff just to deal with getting your mail to the right place. This isn’t exactly a great incentive for getting companies to set up HQs in Taiwan. Again, say hello to more isolation Taiwan.
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Tongyong Pinyin was supposed to be used for Mandarin, Hakka, Taiwanese, aboriginal languages. But it hasn’t worked out that way at all and, as Cranky has pointed out, it’s not useful for romanizing Taiwanese.
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Tongyong Pinyin was forced into being. It wasn’t the result of an open dialogue in which all voices were represented. Instead, those supporting Hanyu Pinyin, such as former Education Minister Ovid Tzeng, were shown ti the door. So, this policy that is supposed to differentiate Taiwan from big, bad China was initiated in a most heavy-handed way. If you are pro-Taiwanese and, I assume, pro-democracy, don’t you think something like a romanization system should be established with consideration to everyone living on the island?
Finally, I don’t think romanization is a huge issue. It’s not going to be the sole factor that keeps tourists or businesses away. But I do think it’s indicative of how Taiwan’s identity crisis is impacting the island’s future and its struggles in trying to decide what kind of mix of globalization and localization it wants.
100 miles of ocean is enough to convince most people that Taiwan is not part of China.
Sure we’ll survive, but a few people might get lost, a few items of mail might go undelivered and there will be a lot of unnecessary confusion. And did I mention the enormous amount of money wasted continually changing the signs.
The most recent edition of the LP has the most common spelling, Chinese characters and Hanyu pinyin with tone marks. Compare this with the LP for China where only one spelling with tone marks and Chinese characters are necessary.
I’ve presented my arguments on this and other threads, so I won;t bore you by repeating them. My main interest now is dispelling the myth that the foreign community is unanimously in favor of Hanyu Pinyin. Hobart, let’s put together a petition to the Guoyu committee. I know at least four or five others foreigners who will sign.
Four or five? I know at least seven – make that eight if my friend comes back to Taiwan from la-la land.
That would give us something just under .001% of the foreign population in Taiwan.
Nice idea Feiren. I agree that most think all foreigners unanimously favor Hanyu Pinyin and maybe we should set the record straight, but as long as the Pro-Taiwan DPP control the Executive Yuan, there is nothing to worry about.
If the Pro-China KMT come into power again, I am sure every sign from Kenting to Keelung will be changed to Hanyu pinyin along with the GIO logo and the word Taiwan on the passport cover and so on.
I would be very happy if you could set the record straight. Please let them know that a very large percentage of foreigners would appreciate the international standard of Mandarin romanization, and a miniscule percentage would prefer a standard that has no published reference material, and has no official status outside of Taiwan’s countryside and a handful of minor cities. You remember the informal polls conducted in the past, right Hobart?
Ha! 
The irony of course, is that you celected two place names whose romanization would NOT change. Kending and Jilong are both the Hanyu and the Tongyong spellings… 
Time to brush up on your linguistic scholarship…
But that’s the whole problem. The pro-Tongyong people don’t believe in scholarship or in fair debate. What matters is being different from China. Purely political.
What a buffoon you are telling me to brush up on my scholarship. The current spelling is K-E-N-T-I-N-G and K-E-E-L-U-N-G and that definitely is not Hanyu pinyin. There is an automatic Hanyu pinyiniser in place on this website that adds in parentheses Hanyu pinyin after the standard Taiwan way of romanizing its place names.
What a buffoon you are telling me to brush up on my scholarship. The current spelling is K-E-N-T-I-N-G and K-E-E-L-U-N-G and that definitely is not Hanyu pinyin. There is an automatic Hanyu pinyiniser in place on this website that adds in parentheses Hanyu pinyin after the standard Taiwan way of romanizing its place names.[/quote]
I’m sorry, I thought you were arguing in favour of Tongyong Pinyin. Now you’re telling me that you endorse Wade-Giles for Taiwan? Do you mean an orthographically correct Wade-Giles, or do you endorse the flawed system that has been haphazardly implemented in the past. Be consistent, sir. You can’t have it every way. What system do you exactly endorse? If it is Tongyong, then admit that Kending and Jilong are correct (as they would also be in HP). If you’re endorsing a correct Wade-Giles, then you would also be in favour of bringing in the apostrophe to all those words that need it. (e.g. T’aitung). Or do you believe that no system is necessary and that the way things have been done in the past few decades is ideal? Because if that’s true, then you are in a very small minority. A minority of one, most likely. :?
Hobart, what do you want to do about places that are the same in Hanyu and Tongyong ? We can’t spell it Taidong, that would be the commie way, hence maps would imply that Taidong is part of the PRC.
Hobart really is getting into the political culture here. Dalton Gang and Feiren offer him some support and, shortly thereafter, old Hobart slips `em the red envelope (25 guanxi apiece).
By the way Hobart, they do that in China, too. I think you should start using green envelopes.
I am going to reveal my total ignorance in this matter.
- I haven’t got the faintest idea about the difference between the sytems you are talking about.
- I can not stand any words using Z, X, Q, because they are imppossible to pronounce.
- The only thing that matter is that they decide one spelling for places, roadnames etc., once and for all, and make that uniform.
I am not able to pronounce the names correctly anyway, but I prefer to recognize the name when I see it.
I Live in Hsintien, and would like to see that place spelled with either Hs…, Sh… or S…, NOT X…
…and why should they use the same system as the mainland, they even use different Chinese characters.
[quote=“HakkaSonic”]Hobart really is getting into the political culture here. Dalton Gang and Feiren offer him some support and, shortly thereafter, old Hobart slips `em the red envelope (25 guanxi apiece).
By the way Hobart, they do that in China, too. I think you should start using green envelopes.[/quote]
Really now, some of you guys posts are getting ridiculous. I was only saying thanks for their support. I can’t take on every rabid foreigner Hanyu pinyin devotee on Forumosa all by myself. I don’t have the time.
Actually, I don’t think I need to speak out any longer about this as the Taiwan government has already made their choice and as the subject of this thread states, the Hanyu pinyin battle was lost. Just wait it out guys the Pro-China KMT will surely make your wish come true.
Hobart