I just updated the “News from the Renegade Province” page of my website. There’s even an article concerning romanization if anyone’s in the mood for that kind of thing. Have fun.
You always hear phrases like “China considers Taiwan a renegade province”, which makes me curious. How do you say renegade province (ie the phrase that the Chinese govt uses when it says this) in Chinese?
Bri
I have also wondered about the accuracy of this term. Here’s how Merriam Webster defines “renegade”:
Etymology: Spanish renegado, from Medieval Latin renegatus, from past participle of renegare to deny, from Latin re- + negare to deny – more at NEGATE
Date: 1583
1 : a deserter from one faith, cause, or allegiance to another
2 : an individual who rejects lawful or conventional behavior
Seems to me that the KMT / ROC gov’t didn’t do the rebelling, but rather it’s the Chinese Communists and the PRC that left the established authority. Does the term the Chinese use have the same connotations? Or are they a bunch of anti-semantics?
I imagine that it’s a catchphrase used mainly by foreign press to “explain” the situation to readers not familiar with the situation - something a Chinese newspaper would not need to do.
I use it because back when I was working at the newspapers we saw it all the time. I would always take it out, but obviously not everyone does.
I even made a “Renegade Province” T-shirt; sold every one, too.
In all the 24 years of my Chinese-speaking life, I have never ever heard or seen any mainland person or media call Taiwan a “renegade” province. The phrase was cooked up by western journalists, and then translated back into Chinese as “panluan de yi sheng.” Taiwanese political hacks can then earn big bucks by appearing for interminable hours on TV panel shows, indignantly objecting to the phrase which was never uttered by China in the first place.
The previous poster is quite right to point out that it was the Communists who rebelled (panluan) against the KMT, not the other way round. As for Taiwan, it did “panluan” for a bit way back in 1947.
In celebration of my site’s one-year anniversary, I’ve done another edition of News from the Renegade Province.
Nice.
Ooh, you are naughty! But do you think … ummm… “Richard Bridges” … will be smart enough to recognize himself should he happen to see your site.
I wish I could see into his desert bunker right now – he’s probably desperately searching his files for some more information on the Treaty of Umihuzuki (Tu) and wondering why he hasn’t heard of it.
Still it might keep him from posting any of his interminable SFPT drones for awhile!
Shhhhh, Sand! Be vewy qwiet! I’m hunting…something. Mr. Bridges is a figment of my imagination, don’t ya know? He’s a figment of someone’s imagination, in any case.
Umihoozuki is the name of a movie I did some stuff on a few years back. It just sounded like a good imaginary treaty name to me, for some reason.
Why, Brad?
I know, based on that story, most if not all of the denizens of Oriented would be called Brad.
Why? Why what? Why did I come up with the treaty name? Because it felt goooood.
Why should Brad be quiet? Because I don’t want Brad to come across the story of his own accord.
As I was at home sick today, I whipped up another edition of the news, including a new story on Tongyong for those who want to know what’s really going on.
Heh. Dude, weren’t you and I talking about the Friday’s waiter mafia with Janice that one night in Fridays? Now I don’t feel so bad about inadvertantly plagiarising your tongyong mafia story
FB
What, were you laboring under the illusion that my material is at all original? How droll. I’d rather labor under this nice opium-induced cloud…
Actually, since yer not here for me to slap you up-side the head for stealing my story, I thought I’d serve up a nice hot portion of your own medicine. That’ll learn ya!
I know it’s been a long, long time, but here’s a new edition of News from the Renegade Province. Have fun.
Where are the back-issues?? No archive search link available??
Click “Previous edition”, on the right-hand side. No archive search, sorry. There’s only six issues in all, in any case.
At long last, I’ve put together another edition of “News from the Renegade Province”. This time I’ve added some extra “headlines” down the right column. Hope you like it.
Nice page. I like your photos, they are really amazing. Go on with that good stuff.
I hope you didn’t, if you still have one lying around in my size, I’ll buy it. Or if you ever decide to make a new batch, I’ll buy one