The design of streets and street names in Taipei

Arts & Sciences Culture & History
#1

I have always ben curious about the meanings of street names in Taipei.

This is what i have so far

Chung Shau(as in the road that SOGO is on) means loyalty to your family
Ren Ai means humanity
Gwang Fu means Overthrow or win back(as when Taiwan was given back to the ROC)
Hsin Yi means Belief in one’s self
Ho Ping means Peace
Min Chuan means Justice
Ming Sheng means birth of a nation
San Ming means the three principles
Ming Tzu means culture
Fu Shing means Renaissance

Chung Shau
Ren Ai
Hsin Yi

I think these three are the 3 principles of the people

Somebody also mentioned to me before that there was some logic behind the design of the streets in Taipei. Like Minchuan, Min Tzu, Min Sheng are all in beside eachother as are the others below Chung Shau. Chung Shau and Chung Shan breaks it into 4 quadrants and there are four roads running parallel withing these quandrants

Anybody got anymore to add about the design or name meaning, I would be interested to know

#2

Here I am setting myself up to be knocked down by someone even more knowing than myself, but at least you’ll get the answers one way or another.
Ho Ping
Shin Yi
Ren Ai
and Chung Hsiao, I THINK are the 8 characters which represent the 8 Confucian values, principles or whatever. They’re just paired together that way. Ok I’m waiting…

#3

As some have complained, Taiwan’s street names are very sinified.

Rather than go back and insert the standard spellings in the first post, I’ll just re-list all the street names here, some with the same translations, some with different ones. (These translations aren’t intended to be definitive. Feel free to add better ones.)

Fuxing – “fuxing zhonghua” (return to the glory [of the previous great ages of the Chinese people])
Guangfu – recover [mainland China]
Heping – peace
Minquan – people’s rights (Sun Yat-sen)
Minsheng – daily life
Minzu – people
Renai – benevolence
Sanmin – three principles of the people
Xinyi – sincerity
Zhongxiao – piety

As for the eight characters, I seem to recall that they belong together – but I don’t remember how. I think the standard order is Zhongxiao, renai, xinyi, heping (?? ?? ?? ??).

#4

The, er, I think three principles of the people are Min Sheng (a right to livlihood), Min Quan (rights or democracy), and Min Zu (culture, or cultural identity, or possibly even social something I give up)

Anyway. There are the filial duties (Zhong being loyalty, and Hsiao being filial piety) in there somewhere, and also references to historical movements, like Guang Fu, throughout history meaning some return to a status quo. Of course we have the Hsin Hai revolution, and Bo and Ai two more Confucian values in Bo’Ai Lu… Don;t know about roads, but the Zi Qiang trains are obviously a reference to the “Self Strengthening” movement of the same name back at the end of the 19th Century.

Obviously sooner or later some dunderhead will come along and translate them all into English, so you’ll have Benevolence Love Road instead of Bo’Ai Lu, and Self Strengthening Street or whatever and it’ll all be like a certain George Orwell novel. Best not to think about what the names actually mean I reckon.

#5

I’d agree it’s best not to dwell on the literal meaning in English, but I find the road names pretty interesing. Learning the names of the roads, and then coming to understand their meaning was very helpful for me as I self acquired the language over the years.

Dr. Sun’s “Three Principals” is “San-Min tzu-i” or 3-Min-ism, so you are right that Mintzu, Minchuan, and Minshen are the Three Principals roads.

Good thread.

#6
quote[quote] The, er, I think three principles of the people are Min Sheng (a right to livlihood), Min Quan (rights or democracy), and Min Zu (culture, or cultural identity, or possibly even social something I give up) [/quote]

This is dead right.

quote:
Ho Ping Shin Yi Ren Ai and Chung Hsiao, I THINK are the 8 characters which represent the 8 Confucian values, principles or whatever. They're just paired together that way

Spot on. The 8 central values or something.
Zhong Xiao (filial piety)
Ren Ai (human love)
Xin Yi (I think this is justice?)
He Ping (peace)
They are always paired this way and I think they are always in this order. Note they are parralell to each other in this order. Most other cities also have these four roads.

Zhong Shan and Zhong Zheng are the assumemd names of Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai Shek. Guo Fu is also means ‘National Ftaher’ and refers to Sun Yat Sen. Note than when streets and stuff get named after peopel they use the ‘given’ names rather than family names because family names are hardly unique.

The majority of streets are named after provinces and places in China (particularly provinces I think).

Just remembers that nestled between Xin Yi and He Ping is Ai Guo. That’s patriotism I guess (love country).

Don’t know why Ji Long (Keelung Rd) is there as it’s nowhere near Jilong River or ont he way to Ji Long.

I love the logic of Taipei Streets. For most of the city the streets are parallel and the system of Nth Sth Ea We and the sections and lanes means it’s so easy to find anywhere. I remember when I first got here, cruising aimlessly on my scooter, getting lost and being able to know what direvtion to get back into even if I didn’t know the Rd just by seeing what compass point and section it was - from that you know what direction the centre is. Brilliant.

Bri

#7

I checked with one of the government’s translations of the Three Principles of the People.

minzu = nationalism
minquan = democracy
minsheng = social well-being

http://www.romanization.com/streets/

#8

The three principles of the people: Minzu, Minquan, Minsheng originated with Sun Yat-Sen’s (loosely based) expounding of Lincoln’s “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

The eight values: zhong xiao ren ai
xin yi he ping, represent classical Confucian values. However, I believe the set phrase was coined only in the early Republic or late Qing era by the reformists/revolutionaries.

By the way, “eight values” = ba de = Patch [Road].

#9

Area names

thsi is somethign I have wondered about also. District names etc. I always wonder why they called them this
I know some easier ones

NanKang - south harbour
Hsin Tien - New Store
Mucha - Wooden ???
Yung He - forever river
Jung He - Middle river
Tam Shui - fresh water
Chung Shan - Middle mountain
Yangmingshan - Sun ??? Mountain
Hsi Jr -???
Tien Mu- Sky
Keelung - I think means Chicken cage?!

#10
quote:
Originally posted by zhukov: Area names

thsi is somethign I have wondered about also. District names etc. I always wonder why they called them this
I know some easier ones

NanKang - south harbouun
Hsin Tien - New Store
Mucha - Wooden ???
Yung He - forever river
Jung He - Middle river
Tam Shui - fresh water
Chung Shan - Middle mountain
Yangmingshan - Sun ??? Mountain
Hsi Jr -???
Tien Mu- Sky
Keelung - I think means Chicken cage?!

Not to be pedantic, but… are you sure that “district” is the word you were looking for?

Central Taipei is divided into “districts”, for example, “Da-Tung District”, “Chung-Shan District”, and “Hsin Yi District” the latter being THE place to live because Chen Shui-Bien lived there during his mayoral term, and continues to live there(?). The assumption being that politicans don’t poop on their front step - they take care of their neighborhood. [Ask your Taiwanese buddies which “districts” they think people consider to be the most prestigeous to hail from. Hsin-Yi is nowadays right up there]

YungHe, ChungHe, SanChung, are usally translated with the suffix “City” by locals, when they are trying to write Chinese addresses in English. It’s the same character as Taipei “city”, as opposed to Taipei “county”.

Even more confusing… way out in the boon docks of Taipei County , you Can have a “city” with a sublocation designated as a “township”. The address becomes an epic to translate into English…

Mr. Wagali Gong
No. 5-6, 9F-6
Alley 6, Lane 75
Fu-chao Rd. Sec 2.
Pu-li Township, Tu-Chen City
Taipei County
Taiwan
ROC

Thankfully the ROC postal service is amazing in their ability to sort out all the premutaions, and differing romanizations - and get the mail to it’s correct destination.

#11
quote[quote]Chung Shan - Middle mountain[/quote] Although the zhong (chung) character is "middle" and shan (shan) is "mountain," Zhong Shan doesn't really have anything to do with mountains. As Bu Lai En noted, Zhong Shan refers to Sun Yat-sen. It's likely there's not a city in either Taiwan or China that doesn't have a Zhongshan Road.
#12

Yeah, don’t translate the street names too literally. Most of them are taken from places in China.

Jilong is interesting. Originally it was chicken coop, but as the place grew the relevant authorities decided that it wasn’t a dignified name for a city, so they changed it to mean something like ‘original land’. That is to say they got new characters with the same pronounciation. But if you look aroung places like the nightmarket there, you’ll see that a lot of the shops use the old characters for flavour.

Bri

#13

Isn’t “Keelung” a basterdized form of the Taiwanese “Kelang,” though? Then it wouldn’t have anything to do with chickens, would it?

#14

I may be wrong - “Keelung” is from one of those old romanisations that we could well do without.

I am sure that whoever first invented it meant it to be said the same as “Jilong” (just as whoever invented “Peking” for Beijing)

Unfortunately Western papers adopt these things, and the “English” spelling get said as the name for the place (as read in English).

Beijing is a big place and the world has been educated - It is no longer Peking

Jilong is a small place - and even the chinese think that foreigners still call it KEE LUNG.

It annoys me a litle that Chinese reflect for a moment and say KEY LUNG, because I am foreign.

Jilong is fine with me.

#15

Kee Lung is bound to be a transliteration from some other dialect - Hokkien or Cantonese. The old story goes that the English “Peking” comes from the French who got it from their Cantonese speaking guides to whom the characters “Bei Jing” are pronounced “Bat Geng”.

Same all over Asia. Cambodinage from “Kampuchea” turns into Cambodia. Hong Kong from “Heung Gong”.

Adds a little historical context n’est-ce pas ?

#16

I always thought ‘Peking’ came from the Postal romanization in which the Hanyu pinyin J is K (hence Keelung) - i.e. ‘Peking’ is phonetically identical to ‘Beijing’ if you know which pinyin you’re in.

That would imply though that the romanization was adopted before there was a commonly used English pronunciation, which would be unusual.

#17

Actually, I believe Hexuan is right; the older names for Chinese places, such as Hong Kong and Peking, comes from the Cantonese pronounciation (although I haven’t heard that it comes to English via French before).
Anybody know how Macau got its English name though?

#18

Originally posted by LittleIron:

quote[quote]Anybody know how Macau got its English name though?[/quote] The story I've heard -- and it is quite possibly just a story, though I got it from a Macau government brochure -- is that the name comes from A-Ma Gao (Bay of A-Ma), after a Ming dynasty temple to Matsu there.

On the subject of Keelung/Jilong, one interesting thing is that I’ve never seen the “Keelung” spelling on pre-KMT maps of Taiwan. “Kelang” and “Kelung,” yes, but no “Keelung.”

I suspect this is somebody trying to “correct” a dialect-derived spelling by adding an e to make it “look” more like how it’s pronounced in Mandarin. That or somebody just screwed up, and the mistake has been copied so much that it’s become standard.

I never let people say “KEY LUNG” to me without comment. (But I’ll spare you my standard rant on romanization.)

A recent instance of this seems to be the case with Danshui, which the MRT wrongly labeled “Tamshui” instead of “Tamsui,” the name that has traditionally been used that reflects the Hokkien pronunciation. (Although in the bastardized Wade-Giles that the MRT generally uses, it would be “Tanshui.”) Now more and more people are using “Tamshui.”

#19
quote:
Originally posted by cranky laowai:

I never let people say “KEY LUNG” to me without comment. (But I’ll spare you my standard rant on romanization.)

Hee hee! My brother-in-law spent a few years in the Merchant Marine and came to Taiwan fairly often, mostly to the ports of Chieelooong or Cowshiooooong, according to him.

#20

Sandman is half right, keelung may be a bastardization of the Taiwanese kelang, which indeed means “chicken cage” Not sure if it was the Japanese or KMT that changed to the more dignified characters now in use.

Keelung road does point towards the city, I always wondered if this was the start of the old route there.

Saying Key lung maybe somewhat of a natural reaction, I have to force my grade school students not to say that or Ken Ting or whatever