In some countries far far away, some towns have strange weird names that are funny, too. For example, there’s BORING, OREGON in the USA and NORMAL, OKLAHOMA and HONOLULU, ALASKA, among others. Someone on another post here said there is a STARBUCK, WASHINGTON too, and I am sure that Australia and NZ and the UK have many weird and interesting place names, out of the ordinary. There’s also a place called LAND’S END in Alaska I heard. And ENOLA, TEXAS got its name from the word ALONE spelled backwards, really. Small town, few people, all alone. Go figure, as Sandman would say.
So … my question… in addition to listing the towns you know of anywhere with peculiar names… overseas … ARE THERE also place names here in TAIWAN that are peculiar in CHinese Mandarin? Like some place in the mountains called , literally, “NO FOOD HERE” or something?
My wife was born in a little place called “Tiger Tail” down south in Taiwan.
And didn’t Kaohsiung used to be called “Hit the dog”?
In my home state of Pennsylvania, one can travel on the turnpike and go through the towns of “Intercourse”, “Climax” and “Paradise”. Thus, if one is travelling in the correct direction, it is true that he would have to go through intercourse before he could get to climax and paradise.
Jiu Fen or something like that, near Keelung. According to my Taiwanese friends it means “9 Deliveries” (or “9 Consignments” if you want) because 9 families used to live there and once in a while a boat came to deliver 9 packages.
There’s lots of names like Jiufen. Just in that area there’s Wutu, Qiuu, Badu. In Xindian there’s Qizhang.
I like Jilong. It usedto be chicken coup (you still see those characters used sometimes), but they changed the charcters (said the same) to make it ‘original land’ or something.
[quote=“formosa”]cranky laowai: “Arkansas, Illinois, and Virginia, however, all have places named “Formosa.” I wonder what the stories are behind those.”
How did you find that out? Cool. Look into it and report back. [/quote]
Homework? :shock: Not until I finish the 50 or so other projects I’ve been telling myself I’ll take care of…
That’s a popular story, but probably not true. “Taiwan” probably comes from the name Aborigines gave to a village in the south of the island. AFAIK, the island has been known officially as Taiwan for about 320 years.
I hadn’t heard that. Thanks for the news. Did those SF rents finally get to be too much for him?
