It most definitely is NOT fresh. Hasnt been in 100 years ! And tis certainly not all water either (i imagine a lot of urine in it as well) . UGH>
omg, this is completely f’in wack. I mean, every other MRT station is standard hanyu pinyin. On top of that, the stickers just uglify the signage. Either change them ALL to reflect the current fashion, or leave what was already well made alone. Is there an MRT office where we can give feedback on this without having my ARC revoked? If it’s a sincere correction and not a political thing, it makes them look unnecessarily foolish.
It’s the decision of the Tamsui District Office, not the MRT… the district office would be the ones to talk to about this.
As for the stickers, those are just temporary… eventually they’ll be replaced by something more permanent. The MRT has a pretty good track record for doing that.
[quote=“Chris”]It’s the decision of the Danshui District Office, not the MRT… the district office would be the ones to talk to about this.
As for the stickers, those are just temporary… eventually they’ll be replaced by something more permanent. The MRT has a pretty good track record for doing that.[/quote]
Every tourist sign around the Danshui MRT station now has the silly spelling. Maybe they’ve had that spelling for a while; I’m not sure. Quite annoying that a couple of years ago I lived in Danshui Town, Taipei County; now I live in T-a-m-s-u-i District, New Taipei City.
you could move, you know, to somewhere better spelled.
Good one. 
It’s amazing how fast they implement name changes in this country. Could they be taking the Confucian principle of the “rectification of names” to an absurd extreme?
People can complain to them – and I hope they do – but I wouldn’t expect much.
The Danshui District Office couldn’t have done this if it weren’t for the Xinbei City Government above it and the Ministry of the Interior above that. (All of those under the control of KMT administrations, FWIW.)
The MOI should be the one holding the line on this. But it’s not. And in my experience they’re not particularly open about responding to criticism, however nicely and constructively put.
I recommend contacting the Presidential Office and the media. But even though the complaints would be about actions taken by KMT administrations I wouldn’t expect much help from the Liberty Times or Taipei Times on this one.
I wish the Tam[color=#000040]s[/color]ui spelling were about promotion of the Taiwanese language. But it’s not. Those in charge just think of this as “English.” They’re wrong.
I only wish the MRT had a good record of fixing its mistakes instead of taking perfectly good names/spellings and screwing them up.
And that’s all you need to know about that! 
Good ole George.
What did he call it? Tamsui? I’ll go with whatever he said. 
See, that’s my beef, not the worship of some spelling god. If it’s because they think that “Tamsui” gets them a more desirable result–in terms of publicity, or the way foreigners will mispronounce it, or they just like the look of the new spelling, whatever–who would care. But when I asked an attendant about it, they told me it was to make things easier for English speakers. So it looks like they took something that wasn’t broke, broke it in the name of fixing it, then called the resulting mess fixed as they feel self-satisfied with a job well done. It’s so doofus-y. Everybody loses, especially if English speakers read it as “Tom Suey.”
I recently noticed that on the MRT the English announcements now follow that spelling (not sure when they recorded it, maybe a long time ago, but I haven’t noticed it before). Now the lady says something like: This train is bound for “Tum shuay” and all the foreigners hearing this who are not familiar with Chinese will be thinking, this name must indeed be pronounced with a “T”.
What kind of moron did suggest and what kind of moron did approve the name change, and what kind of moron is in charge of the MRT announcements, I wonder.
I get the feeling the American voice girl is deliberately taking the piss.
The misleading English signs and announcements are manifestations of passive-aggressive resentment towards foreign residents and visitors. Taiwanese don’t go by English signs. And for the English announcements, well, they could be playing night club music singing about the finer details of an orgy as far as that matters. It’s all just be background noise to the locals. Thus, Taipei’s MRT management is just fucking with us
Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui has been known as Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui since when the Spanish ruled over northern Taiwan. It’s called Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui when the Dutch were there. It’s called Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui when the Koxinga and Qing were there. It’s called Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui when the Japanese were there. Seems pointless changing it to something else.
It’s like changing Taipei to Tai[color=#000040]b[/color]ei or something…
Hey–those groovy sounds are only to be used during the inevitable song and dance at kindergarten graduation parties.
Sorry, but you’re wrong. During time of the Spanish, Dutch, Zheng, and early Qing, it was known as Hobe 滬尾.
The late Qing changed the name to 淡水 after the river, which in Taiwanese (and in western sources of the time) is Tam-sui (or Tansui in the Japanese pronunication).
Using “Danshui” (Hanyu Pinyin Mandarin spelling) to refer to the town is pretty recent.
If they’re going use the Taiwanese pronunciation, then they should just do so, pronounce it in Taiwanese, i.e. “dahm-ZUEE”. It’s already pronounced in Taiwanese during the second reading of the destination in any case. Screw this “Tayum-Suee” BS.
That’s a complete load of hog’s wallop. The change in signs in political: DPP local politicians are doing it as part of a small but determined island-wide movement to re-Taiwanize local names that were made officially Mandarin by the KMT. The bad pronunciation is just the same as locals calling Gaoxiong “Cow-shung” or Taizhong “Tie-chung”: our pinyin badly pronounced by louts, then copied by the locals in an attempt to get it right.
[quote=“hansioux”]Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui has been known as Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui since when the Spanish ruled over northern Taiwan. It’s called Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui when the Dutch were there. It’s called Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui when the Koxinga and Qing were there. It’s called Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui when the Japanese were there. Seems pointless changing it to something else.
It’s like changing Taipei to Tai[color=#000040]b[/color]ei or something…[/quote]
My bad, the auto-correct had your “Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui” changed to “Danshui”. Sorry! The “Hobe” old name for Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui still stands though, it wasn’t called Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui/Danshui until the late Qing period.
That’s a complete load of hog’s wallop. The change in signs in political: DPP local politicians are doing it as part of a small but determined island-wide movement to re-Taiwanize local names that were made officially Mandarin by the KMT. [/quote]
As I’ve already pointed out in this thread, that’s incorrect.
Although the DPP certainly has messed with spellings, etc., the change from “Danshui” to “Ta[color=#000040]m[/color]sui” originated in Danshui (which was under a KMT administration), then approved by the Taipei County Government (which was under a KMT administration), then approved by the Ministry of the Interior (under, yes, a KMT administration).
Screwing up signage in Taiwan is a bipartisan effort – just usually at different times rather than in concert.
But that part’s pretty much correct.