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Discussion on splitting the Chinese Wikipedia

Apparently there is ongoing discussion regarding splitting the Chinese Wikipedia into (essentially) a China Wikipedia and a Taiwan Wikipedia, with simplified Chinese content on one, and traditional Chinese content on another. For those who are curious, see zh:维基百科:互助客栈/其他#提議，簡繁分家. --benlisquareT•C•E 18:22, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Has the WikiMediaFoundation (WMF) been informed? And I wonder where HK (traditional)/Macau (traditional)/Singapore (simplified) would fall in such a split -- 76.65.129.3 (talk) 06:36, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
I personally predict that this proposal is very unlikely to pass. Per the guiding principles on Meta, Wikipedia is split separately by language, and never by political distinctions. Even if there is consensus at zhwiki to do so (and there currently isn't), this proposal would simply be shot down at the Wikimedia Foundation level. --benlisquareT•C•E 06:59, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
The proposal does not appear to be gaining much traction, fwiw. wctaiwan (talk) 07:00, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
It isn't surprising. I don't see how the majority of zhwiki members, or any of the Wikimedia Foundation members would see this in a positive light: this proposed split would merely become a POV fork (CN-zhwiki saying that the Cultural Revolution was a good thing, whilst TW-zhwiki saying that Chiang Kai-shek is the second coming of Jesus, or something like that), would split the zhwiki userbase, further decrease the number of active contributors (as if zhwiki doesn't already have a shortage of editors), create redundacy and server resource wastage, and essentially kill zhwiki. Since there are fewer editors from the mainland, the China version would essentially be a ghost-town version of Baidu Baike that runs on MediaWiki - reduced content, and significantly localised content (e.g. "我国台湾省的领导，马英九，在2011年6月发表。。。"). --benlisquareT•C•E 07:18, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Who suggested this idea to begin with? Don't they know the history of the Chinese Wikipedia and the WMF's NPOV policy? WhisperToMe (talk) 20:46, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
The proposer is an individual from Mainland China, who is likely from the Shanghai region (their userpage states that their native language is Wuu Chinese), in response to an earlier discussion section (essentially a troll thread) on the zhwiki equivalent WP:Village pump by another mainland editor, likely a Guangdong native based on their userpage. The split has the support of a (presumably Taiwan-based) sysop called zh:User:Ch.Andrew, but as we all know, there's nothing special about being an admin, so this means nothing. The split is also supported by a few Taiwan-based senior editors (50,000+ edits), and is opposed by a few mainland-based senior editors. --benlisquareT•C•E 01:05, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I had a read, and the whole exercise seems to be a deliberate attempt at trolling (or arguing for the sake of arguing at best). Nobody wants to move ahead with what they are proposing (ie. inform WMF at least). With so many people arguing only amongst themselves, it is much ado about nothing, it is 閉門造車. The solution to edit wars on zhwiki isn't to split, it is to STFU and edit. _dk (talk) 22:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

"West Cantonia" wasn't there until this edit from an IP editor. I reverted and left a message in English. The front page description of "Wikipedia Cantonia" was set back in 2007. You can always contact the WMF if you think there needs to be resolving of issues there. The solution for ZH-YUE Wiki is to make stubs, lots of stubs on Hong Kong and Guangdong-related stuff. That way it becomes more visible and suddenly there is public pressure to be more accurate. That's why I go around doing "article requests" so that smaller Wikis become more visible. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:17, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
A note regarding the usage of "Cantonia" on the Wikipedia's front page: Is there any explanation or justification on why this is so? Has anyone made any explanation or statement about this? The term "Cantonia" is essentially a made-up term created by a bunch of politically-aligned nerds on an internet forum. A google search for "Cantonia" only brings back internet forum posts, Facebook pages and Youtube channels - it is not a scholarly term, and it is not used in scholarly literature. It is not used in books, journal articles, newspapers, or mass media. Why is this term being used as a semi-official synonym for "Guangdong"? --benlisquareT•C•E 05:50, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
I am a sysop there. I dislike others speaking in this way about Cantonese Wikipedia. Personally I have never reverted and will never revert any modification from 唐文 to 中文, and I just fixed the other problems mentioned here, with 大粵民國臨時政府 brought to a deletion discussion. As for the 唐文 and 中文 issue, I think the majority(not including me) of the sysops there believe that we should use the terms of traditional Cantonese (that is, of the old ages) to counteract the overwhelming influence of Mandarin, and the situation is, there are already many new-borns talking Cantonese in a Mandarin way(I agree on this, however), which is hardly beneficial to the development of Cantonese. I find it really hard to persuade them to change their viewpoint and as a sysop, I should not be the one to start an edit war or a move war. However, we all agree that Cantonese Wikipedia is an effective tool to preserve the Cantonese language, as many of the languages in China, labelled as "dialect" for some reason, are fading very quickly. That's why for some articles if there is a term unique to Cantonese, we are more inclined to use it even if it is not used as often as another term which applies both to Mandarin and Cantonese. In my opinion the chosen term should still be common in everyday use even if it is not the most frequent one, but other sysops may not think so. --William915(discuss with me) 17:17, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
About the vocabulary the solution may be to check the trends of modern day written Cantonese and see what is happening with it. It's true that the spoken language often differs from the written and Wikipedia is more based on the written anyway. I understand that there are language purists who want to preserve it, but languages do change. Wikipedia is intended to be a contemporary resource, after all. The WMF does not approve languages that do not have a literary history (like Classical Nahuatl does) and those that aren't currently spoken (so Coptic language doesn't get a Wikipedia). If a word is being used in modern written Cantonese it makes sense to use that on ZH-YUE. Anyway there was a deletion discussion started at zh-yue:Wikipedia:刪文討論/記錄/2013/10/10 so from there I just commented and linked to the English discussion. It will be up to the Cantonese Wikipedia community to decide what to do with the article. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:24, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
I have to point out, however, that there are very limited written Cantonese materials now. Even some of the Hong Kong magazines and newspapers which uses a little bit of written Cantonese actually use it in mixture of Mandarin. In most cases we have to resort to books on Cantonese etymology, or the Cantodict website which has been listed in the UNICODE site. The latter is not exhaustive, however. According to Cantodict, there is no 唐文, but there is 黃䘆, which is also believed not to be frequently used nowadays.
I also have to point out that style of Cantonese Wikipedia is set in its early history. It is natural to overdo language purification a little when there are so many people in Chinese Wikipedia opposing the set up of Cantonese Wikipedia. The style then becomes the convention, and probably you are right, benlisquare, no one cares to change it, and it is actually impossible to make a thorough revolution to get rid of these conventions. As for Benlisquare's question whether there are anyone even using 唐文, there are, at least my grandparents talk in this way, but I can't find a good way to find out how often it is used in modern Cantonese. --William915(discuss with me) 18:02, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
There is a book Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular written by Donald B. Snow that is on Google Books. Maybe that book can be a guide on how to craft the Cantonese Wikipedia. Page 49 talks about the vocabulary of written Cantonese versus Mandarin. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:47, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
So in other words, on yuewiki, article titles are chosen based on language-purism synthesis, and not an equivalent of what we know here as WP:COMMONNAME? Terms such as 漢字 are used as the majority in Cantonese, in both everyday speech and scholarly literature. A google search for 唐字 brings very few relevant results, if any. This is the reason why I find the naming strange - it chooses to use terminology that few people use elsewhere. --benlisquareT•C•E 05:40, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
If there's evidence 漢字 is used in scholarly literature in written Cantonese, get evidence and it can be presented to the ZH-YUE userbase. It may help to see if the WMF has a preference on whether COMMONNAME is something all wikis should use. WhisperToMe (talk) 08:21, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
The word 唐字 doesn't even show up in Cantonese dictionaries. The only valid result for Chinese character is hon3 zi6. --benlisquareT•C•E 08:49, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
Another example of how terminology becomes confusing and mixed up on yuewiki: zh-yue:唐人 - "People from Tangshan or the region surrounding Tangshan are known as 唐人. People from the north call themselves 漢人 instead." zh-yue:中國人 (Chinese people) and zh-yue:中華民族 (Zhonghua minzu) both redirect to "唐人", and the article has interwikis to en:Ethnic Chinese and zh:华人. The interwikis here make things all the more confusing. --benlisquareT•C•E 09:07, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Back to the topic of splitting Chinese Wikipedia. I think it is merely a farce.--William915(discuss with me) 18:04, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

  • "there are already many new-borns talking Cantonese in a Mandarin way" – that's been the case all along. It's called "白話文" and shouldn't be counted as a "trend". As a bit of a traditionalist, I believe articles should eschew the extreme colloquialisms and excessive loan-words that are present in the vernacular. Whilst I think it acceptable for "無" to be written "冇", I don't think it should descend to writing "他小的時候以學習功夫為主" as "佢細個嗰陣以學習功夫為主". Yes, the proposed splitting of zh-wp seems to have purely political motivations, and as the linguistic differences are not huge and could largely be catered for in more selective and careful use of terminology, the split is akin to the POV forking we often see here, and really ought not to be entertained. -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 07:28, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
    • While there is such a thing as written Cantonese, is it possible to convert a Mandarin text to a Cantonese text on a computer flawlessly? WhisperToMe (talk) 08:57, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
      • It's not a perfect 1:1 conversion, which is why it's better for any conversion to be done by humans. Written Cantonese discusses the ways in which Cantonese is recorded in written language. Officially, Cantonese speakers are diglossic, and written Cantonese is generally used for colloquialisms. --benlisquareT•C•E 09:11, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
        • Okay. So I conclude that we should have a Cantonese Wikipedia. It's a matter of crafting it so it reflects the modern written language when possible. There are formal Cantonese radio news broadcasts. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:01, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
          • WhisperToMe, I don't disagree with you, but I do think you're slightly misunderstanding something. Yes, there are Cantonese broadcasts, but radio news broadcasts are done in spoken Cantonese; you can't write down noises that human throats make onto white paper and black ink. There is a difference between written and spoken language. As I've said earlier, Cantonese speakers are diglossic. I'll mention more of this down below. --benlisquareT•C•E 14:18, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
    • I really can't agree with you on the phrase "descending to writing". I don't see why it should be a referred to as "descend". and Chinatown(referred to as "唐人街") partly justifies the use of "唐人". Moreover, I really don't think it is normal for Cantonese-speaking people to talk(let's focus on talking, not writing, at lease within this sentense) in Cantonese with Mandarin words mixed in it. It is as weird as an English speaker saying "I suis la manager here." If you acknowledge Cantonese as an individual language you won't find this difficult to understand. Again, I have to state that personally I am more inclined to use other terms than "唐人". I also have to point out that, as WhisperToMe stated, there seems to be no regulations stating that all wikis should follow WP:COMMONNAME here. As for automated translation, the answer is definitely a no. One cannot get Cantonese from Mandarin by simple transliteration because Cantonese is an independent language with its own grammatical structure, different from Mandarin or other languages in China.--William915(discuss with me) 10:55, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Let me just further clarify. When we refer to a word as "colloquial", it means it has a corresponding formal term. If we use the formal term instead in the talking, however, it is totally acceptable and no one would find it weird. It just means that we are talking in a formal way. So the corresponding formal term is less frequently used but still used in spoken language. It is definitely not the case for the example Ohconfucius gave, however. Absolutely no one would talk like "我是……" in Cantonese. The term "是" is not used at all as a verb in spoken Cantonese. So we should not deem "係" as the colloquial term for "是" but as the translation of "是" from Mandarin. The same holds for "佢" and "細個"。If any one say "他小的時候以學習功夫為主" in Cantonese, he will be deemed abnormal instead of talking in the formal way.--William915(discuss with me) 11:28, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
      • Unlike English, where the spoken language and written language are identical, it's not the case for Chinese. When the Chief Executive of Hong Kong makes a speech in Cantonese, the television subtitles you see under his face tend to use a different register compared to what he actually says. As I said earlier, Cantonese speakers are largely diglossic; people might say one thing, and write something differently. Many native Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong have little to no ability in spoken Mandarin at all, however during their high school final exams write their essays in Vernacular Chinese - it's not as simple as making a parallel in English. An American person writes "I'd like a Latte", and says "I'd like a Latte", but it's not as simple in the case of Cantonese. In Hong Kong, if I say (i.e. using my mouth) "唔該畀佢本書我" (M̀h-gōi béi kéuih bún syū ngóh), I'm verbally asking someone for his book, but in writing (i.e. with my hand and a pen), I would write it as "請給我他的書" (no pronunciation, because this is a written language scribed in a non-alphabetic, ideographic script, and that these words would not be spoken via mouth in any realistic, practical, real-world situation), unless I'm using MSN messenger or Facebook or something, where it is socially acceptable to use colloquial written characters. Yes, the Cantonese vocabulary words aren't colloquial in spoken Cantonese, but they are when written on paper. The most common occurrence when you'll see Cantonese vernacular writing is when reading novels and other literature written in Cantonese. --benlisquareT•C•E 14:18, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
        • And WhisperToMe, if you're still feeling kind of confused, here's an analogy: Compare this situation to 17th Century England, where all (not some, all) scientific literature is published in Latin, even though nobody speaks Latin in England. The Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica written by Isaac Newton is written in 100% Latin. Similarly, Cantonese speakers speak in one spoken language, and formally write in a different written language, a language that might be significantly unrelated to the language that they verbally speak using their mouth. --benlisquareT•C•E 14:33, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
        • A kind reminder to you: we hardly say or write "請給我他的書", we say or write "請把他的書給我" instead. Also, your user page in Chinese Wikipedia needs some minor correction. If you don't mind, I would be glad to help. P.S. I don't mean to divert the topic here. --William915(discuss with me) 16:57, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

New Article: Migrant Workers in China

I'm a student at Rice University, and I'm planning on writing a new article on Migrant Workers in China for a course: Education Program:Rice University/Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities, Section 2 (Fall 2013)
I hope to provide an overview, go over the history and origins, cover major factors, and discuss the different impacts of the phenomenon. If you have any comments, suggestions, or revisions, please let me know!

1. Overview
2. History and Origins
3. Factors

a. Economic
b. Social
c. Political
i. Hukou
ii. Other

4. Impact

a. Labor Supply
i. Domestic Work
ii. Factory Work
iii. Sex Work
b. Social
i. Gender Roles
ii. Class
iii. Health
iv. Education
v. Inequality

5. Theories for the Future
6. See Also
7. References
8. Further Reading

References: Chan, Chris King-Chi, and Pun Ngai. “The Making of a New Working Class? A Study of Collective Actions of Migrant Workers in South China.” The China Quarterly 198 (June 22, 2009): 287. doi:10.1017/S0305741009000319.
Chan, Jenny, and Ngai Pun. “Suicide as Protest for the New Generation of Chinese Migrant Workers: Foxconn, Global Capital, and the State.” The Asia-Pacific Journal 8, no. 37 (2010): 2–10.
Chan, Kam Wing, and Li Zhang. “The Hukou System and Rural-Urban Migration in China: Processes and Changes.” The China Quarterly 160 (1999): 818–855. doi:10.1017/S0305741000001351.
Connelly, Rachel, Kenneth Roberts, and Zhenzhen Zheng. “The Impact of Circular Migration on the Position of Married Women in Rural China.” Feminist Economics 16, no. 1 (2010): 3–41. doi:10.1080/13545700903382752.
Démurger, Sylvie, Marc Gurgand, Shi Li, and Ximing Yue. “Migrants as Second-class Workers in Urban China? A Decomposition Analysis.” Journal of Comparative Economics 37, no. 4 (December 2009): 610–628. doi:10.1016/j.jce.2009.04.008.
Fan, C. Cindy. China on the Move: Migration, the State, and the Household. Routledge, 2008.
Friedman, Eli. “Outside the New China | Jacobin.” Accessed September 26, 2013. http://jacobinmag.com/2013/09/outside-the-new-china/.
Froissart, Chloé. “Review of ‘China on the Move: Migration, the State and the Household’.” The China Quarterly 196 (January 12, 2009): 937. doi:10.1017/S0305741008001409.
Hesketh, Therese, Ye Xue Jun, Li Lu, and Wang Hong Mei. “Health Status and Access to Health Care of Migrant Workers in China.” Public Health Reports 123, no. 2 (2008): 189.
Ichimura, Shinichi. Decentralization Policies in Asian Development. World Scientific, 2008.
Keung Wong, Daniel Fu, Chang Ying Li, and He Xue Song. “Rural Migrant Workers in Urban China: Living a Marginalised Life: Rural Migrant Workers in Urban China.” International Journal of Social Welfare 16, no. 1 (January 2007): 32–40. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2397.2007.00475.x.
Knight, John, Lina Song, and Jia Huaibin. “Chinese Rural Migrants in Urban Enterprises: Three Perspectives.” Journal of Development Studies 35, no. 3 (February 1999): 73–104. doi:10.1080/00220389908422574.
Knight, John, and Linda Yueh. “Job Mobility of Residents and Migrants in Urban China.” Journal of Comparative Economics 32, no. 4 (December 2004): 637–660. doi:10.1016/j.jce.2004.07.004.
Lee, Ching Kwan. “Review of Yan Hairong ‘New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development and Women Workers in China’.” The China Quarterly 200 (December 16, 2009): 1099. doi:10.1017/S0305741009990713.
Wang, Feng, and Xuejin Zuo. “Inside China’s Cities: Institutional Barriers and Opportunities for Urban Migrants,” n.d.
Wing Chan, Kam, and Will Buckingham. “Is China Abolishing the Hukou System?” The China Quarterly 195 (2008): 582–606. doi:10.1017/S0305741008000787.
Zhao, Yaohui. “Labor Migration and Earnings Differences: The Case of Rural China.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 47, no. 4 (July 1999): 767–782. doi:10.1086/452431.
———. “The Role of Migrant Networks in Labor Migration: The Case of China,” n.d.
Zheng, Tiantian. Red Lights. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
Zhi, Huayong, Zhurong Huang, Jikun Huang, Scott D. Rozelle, and Andrew D. Mason. “Impact of the Global Financial Crisis in Rural China: Gender, Off-farm Employment, and Wages.” Feminist Economics 19, no. 3 (2013): 238–266. doi:10.1080/13545701.2013.809137.

GavinCross (talk) 19:53, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Note that there is already the article Migration in China; so, whatever you write, it would be desirable to avoid too much duplication. -- Vmenkov (talk) 02:15, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
I've now edited the article Migration in China, adding a significant amount of new content. Let me know what you think! GavinCross (talk) 02:41, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Name of Sai Jinhua's husband?

In Sai Jinhua a source I used stated that Sai Jinhua's last husband had the name Wei Sijiong but the Chinese characters resolve to 魏斯炅 Wèi Sīguì. What was her husband's name? WhisperToMe (talk) 16:08, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

"anti-Hanyu Pinyin" activism nonsense

This is really getting out of hand, and rather annoying. Per WP:MOS-ZH and WP:NC-ZH, the standardised norm here is to use Hanyu Pinyin unless there is an extremely good reason for using an alternative. An acceptable alternative is if an individual is from a non-Mandarin speaking area (e.g. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai speaks Cantonese, therefore we don't call him "Liang Chaowei"). What is not an acceptable reason is using old Mandarin romanisations such as Wade-Giles due to "historical reasons", as noted by cases such as Mao Zedong (not "Mao Tse-tung") and Emperor Huizong of Song (not "Emperor Hui-tsung"). This has been the accepted consensus for many years.

In recent months, Douglas the Comeback Kid (talk · contribs) has been making hundreds, if not thousands of edits like this one which replace Hanyu Pinyin names in wikilinks with Wade-Giles or Postal Map Romanization ones, either through link-piping or linking to redirects. This is getting quite annoying, and also appears to be a deliberate attempt at subtle POV-pushing/activism: as of 22:58, 27 October 2013, this editor's personal userpage reads "The Wade-Giles romanisation system is used by this user when romanising Chinese characters based on their Mandarin Chinese pronunciation. This user rejects the Hanyu Pinyin romanisation system" and "Chinese Postal Map Romanisation spelling of Chinese place names is used by this user. This user rejects Hanyu Pinyin spelling". These edits have been going on for more than a year, with no end in sight. How, pray tell, is this not blatant WP:ACTIVISM? --benlisquareT•C•E 00:13, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  • Hanyu Pinyin is indeed becoming the standard, so... WhisperToMe (talk) 07:40, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Yes, that's right. Right now, I'm not even going to argue how the standard is now Hanyu Pinyin in China (as of 1958), Taiwan (as of 2008), Singapore (since the 1980s) and international organisations such as the UN, or how systems such as Wade-Giles are not only niche and used specifically amongst small circles of specialists but also slowly falling out of use amongst such groups; I'm going to stick to Wikipedia only. Ignoring the fact that HYPY is standard, how is the deliberate avoidance of HYPY usage beneficial towards Wikipedia as a whole? In addition, how is this deliberate avoidance in compliance with the guidelines that we've set up over the years?

      I've essentially been holding this in for over a year now, maybe even longer; I've noticed this happening a long time ago, but never said anything, thinking that if I ignore it, the problem might go away by itself. Seeing it happen again today was when I decided that I've had enough, and that it has to end. We can't just have a community standard, and then have a few people choose to do things their own way as they make otherwise good-faith fixes to articles. People making exceptions to the rules based on their own personal followings makes the project as a whole less uniform and systematic, and more messy and chaotic (one system being used at one place, another somewhere else); the guidelines aren't meant to be followed arbitrarily whenever people feel like it, like one would see in an anarchy. --benlisquareT•C•E 09:05, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

      • ...Have you tried talking to him directly? _dk (talk) 16:35, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
        • ...Or have you tried engaging with him on a few examples using BRD? (You could pick a few examples of his recent changes where Hanyu Pinyin predominates in recent reliable sources, revert, and engage with him on those article's talk pages.)--Wikimedes (talk) 19:15, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
        • Probably back in 2012 or 2011 or something, and I haven't bothered interacting with them ever since (got tired of trying, since any interaction didn't end up constructive). Back in those days, there used to be a notice at the top of his userpage that read "The following pro-PRC people are not welcome on my talk page: SchmuckyTheCat, Benlisquare", or something along those lines. I might have another chat with him next time I see it, as much as I'd like to avoid doing so out of my own sanity. --benlisquareT•C•E 04:06, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
          • From experience it's better to be proactive so that problems don't get worse. He should be told this and if he seems to have difficulty, then there is a community discussion about the issue. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:09, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Niehai Hua: Jin Wenqing = Jin Jun??

In Niehai_Hua#Characters I think Jin Wenqing and Jin Jun are the same character. An unreliable internet source stated that Wenqing was the zi name of the character. Would someone mind finding a source which confirms this? WhisperToMe (talk) 16:40, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Article alerts

Might be good to get some fresh input on some of current Wikipedia:WikiProject China/Article alerts. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:13, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Ethnic villages of the People's Republic of China

How many Ethnic villages of the People's Republic of China?--Kaiyr (talk) 19:40, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Conflicting WP:NC-ZH and WP:MOS-ZH guidelines?

Do these guidelines conflict? An editor has commented at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Li Surname (郦): "I think an interested editor should consider launching an RFC to resolve the conflict between the two Chinese-related MOS guidelines" between WP:NC-ZH and WP:MOS-ZH. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:00, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Confucian "symbol"

Saw this bad boy

on Jurchen Dynasty claiming to be a "symbol of Confucianism". Aside from the fact that, at icon size, this particular image looks almost more like a lazy 木 than a 水, have any of you ever seen "water" as a symbol of Confucianism? Apparently, this is a thing now: Google brings up "intro to world religion" pages saying 'yes, there's no symbol but...

Any idea how this got started? Google Scholar has bupkis, except one guy who admits people (such as Europa Universalis II or the Confucius Institute that I've seen) use the taiji (yin-yang) symbol. I'm with him: if we're going to use anything, let's use ☯ or 仁 or maybe 孝. Even a trigram.

But where did the idea that "water" is a symbol of Confucianism even come from? At least to my mind, the character's more Taoist than 道 is. — LlywelynII 05:23, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

This might be it...
So... other than Civ 5 screwing this up, is there any basis to this idea or should we try to educate people and remove it when it shows up? — LlywelynII 05:50, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
It may have to do with Mencius's extensive use of water as a metaphor for human nature. (Such as "Human nature gravitate towards virtue like water flows downwards".) A better "symbol", if there should be any, is the character for Confucianism itself, 儒. But in any case, we shouldn't even be having this conversation, as we should remove such symbols from infoboxes with extreme prejudice because they are an extension of unnecessary WP:FLAGCRUFT. (Having a "flag" for the Mongol Empire is also ridiculous.) _dk (talk) 06:28, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Cantonese DNA

Could use some comment at WP:RSN#Are these reliable sources for Cantonese NDA?. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 10:46, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Requesting assistance

At Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Crystal_cake; need assistance from Chinese-speakers to determine (a) notability, and (b) if notable, to add sources to the article. Most sources seem to be in Chinese language, which I don't speak.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:19, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Large 厲 character needed

Can someone please help with adding the missing 厲 hanzi to Li (surname meaning "whetstone"), thanks! In ictu oculi (talk) 08:17, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Chinese music

There is currently a discussion on Chinese music and what changes might be made there. If you would like to contribute please do so at its talk page. Hzh (talk) 18:18, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

New taipei municipal lin-kuo senior high school

The article New taipei municipal lin-kuo senior high school has been tagged for PROD because I cannot find any evidence that the school exists. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 15:39, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Longyou grottoes/caves

Found these mentioned on a fringe website, looking for reliable sources so an article can be written. I've found [1] from the Journal of Engineering Geology, which is in Chinese except for the abstract, and at the other extreme some sort of UFO site[2]. Dougweller (talk) 21:33, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

There are plenty of reliable, non-fringe sources in Chinese. I visited the grottoes a few years ago and may be able to dig out some photos. -Zanhe (talk) 09:16, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. What I'm looking for is archaeological etc reports on what these are. Dougweller (talk) 10:45, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
I've never been there, but I've seen a few pictures and videos of the place and they appeared to have embellished the place with modern relief sculpture like this. A lot of the stuff written on it do seem fringy and full of hyperbole, to me it is likely whoever that did it simply enlarged some existing caves and may not be a few thousands years old. So if anything is to be written on it, it would require proper academic sources. Hzh (talk) 12:25, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Certainly. There's always incentive to hype and increase visitor numbers. I didn't notice the modern relief sculpture when I was there. I visited about five caves that were open at the time (also saw many unexcavated, flooded caves from outside), and they were all quite plain, with almost no carvings or decorations. More sober sources speculate that the place was an ancient underground quarry, which sounds reasonable to me, although there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer due to the lack of written records. But I don't think there's any doubt that the place is at least 2000 years old, as after the Qin Dynasty lots of historical records are extant but nothing was written about these large caves. -Zanhe (talk) 06:52, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure that the lack of written records means anything. We do know that many texts have been lost through the centuries, if we can't find records on it, it may simply have been lost. From the shape of the caves, they look similar to some natural caves I've seen, only with straightened, more regular form and edges. The overall shapes don't look like something deliberately carved out, more likely something pre-existing shaped into something more regular. It doesn't look like a quarry either. One headless sculpture on display does not appear to be the right age, and some reliefs chiselled into the wall (not the modern ones) also look to be later additions if they are not original (to my eyes Ming or Qing at the earliest, suggesting that these caves may have been known earlier before their rediscovery). But I am speaking from ignorance and purely as a casual observer, which is why academic sources are essential I think. Hzh (talk) 12:56, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested move of Mandarin Chinese

There is a proposal to move Mandarin Chinese to "Mandarin dialects" and to redirect "Mandarin Chinese" to Standard Chinese. Further views would be welcome at the discussion. Kanguole 16:22, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Air Defense Identification Zone (East China Sea) Merger or rename proposal

As part of the WikiProject China, I am seeking comment on a merger or rename proposal. Thank you. Ansett (talk) 04:02, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Nimen hao, y'all

If anyone's around and has time, we could use a few more voices over at this move request. — LlywelynII 16:09, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

GA review

大家好, I am in the process of reviewing the article on China (review is here: Talk:China/GA3). I'd value the input of members from your Wikiproject regarding whether this article is accurate and suitably broad. I have created a separate section, 'external commentary', for this input to be recorded in. I extend my invitation to all members of this Wikiproject to comment in the review, and wish you all well. --LT910001 (talk) 00:26, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

QSH > GA

Right now, the Qin Shi Huang article is in a bit of a state. Apart from the ugly hybrid name (which we can crunch the numbers on and discuss on the talk page), it's pretty badly composed; there are wide swaths of it written in Chinglish; and (worst of the lot) there are wide swaths written as though Sima Qian's account were gospel truth. I'm aware it's an article that will always invite new editors coming in to "help", but it seems like it's never gotten higher than a B class in its history. Are there any hands here who would like to help me try to fix the formatting, treatment, and sources so we can get it up to GA status?

Afterwards, there'd still be people coming in but at least there would be the GA format to default to when things get out of hand. — LlywelynII 07:28, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

"Jin Dynasty"

The usage of Jin Dynasty (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is under discussion, see Talk:Jin Dynasty (265–420) -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 14:57, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Should non-English names (such as Chinese names) of authors be mentioned in citations of articles that are written in English?

I started this discussion Wikipedia:Help_desk#In_citation_templates.2C_including_non-English_names_of_authors_who_wrote_articles_in_English on whether one should include, within citations, non-English names (such as Chinese names) of authors if the article is itself in English. For instance if a Chinese, Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Malaysian Chinese, Singaporean Chinese, and/or Macanese author wrote an article in English, should his/her Chinese name be mentioned in the citation? (Assuming this author does not have a Wikipedia article where the Chinese name can go) WhisperToMe (talk) 08:38, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

English exonyms for place names

English_exonyms#China. Can someone check this please. See also article Talk. Many thanks. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:28, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

It seems to be missing true exonyms, like "Forbidden City", "Port Arthur", ... -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 05:01, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Zheng He

We have an editor here who says "Cheng Ho(Ming Dynasty) should not be represent in Beijing dialect after Ming. Cheng Ho was the original and correct punctuation of he's name" - they have changed
Zheng He (1371–1433), formerly romanized and recognised as Cheng Ho
to
Cheng Ho (1371–1433), or "Zheng he"(pronunciation in Beijing dialect),

which normally should be accompanied by a change to the name of the article. Dougweller (talk) 18:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's just silly. Wade was the Beijing dialect. — LlywelynII 16:09, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
WG uses the dialect prior to the shift in pronunciation found in PY. -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 03:18, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what that user thinks is the closer to the pronunciation of the time, or which is slightly more accurate. He is today better known as Zheng He in English. That is what matters. The article title is correct as it is. see WP:COMMONNAME - Metal lunchbox (talk) 14:03, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Isn't it the wrong dialect anyways? This would be from the period of the move from Nanjing to Beijing, so it should be Nanjing pronunciation, and not Wade-Giles Peking/Peiping romanization, if that user wanted to preserve historic pronunciations. Regardless, WG isn't old enough to document the actual pronunciation -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 05:07, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

"Mulan"

The meaning of "Mulan" is under discussion, see talk:Mulan (disambiguation) -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 14:58, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Request for help

What a mess! Please help me clean up this template, in order to increase readability and standardise for the English encyclopedia. --LT910001 (talk) 03:17, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Basic Geography question not easy to answer: Highest peaks in Hunan province

I'm working on the article for Changde and I'm trying to describe the geography. In the north near the border with Hubei is Huping Mountain (壶瓶山). I have been able to find very little information about this in English so I'm hoping that I can enlist the help of someone with better Chinese skills or perhaps better google skills. The Hunan government page and the Changde govenment page say that Huping Mountain is the highest at 2099m. Both are in the kind of tourist propaganda style common here, prone to exageration and inaccuracy. and the Change page calls it Jiashan Mountain, a name I can't find elsewhere. I dug a little further and found that the peak in Shennong Valley, Yanling is the highest at 2122m but I can't find much info on that except, the yanling government page, which is yet more not-so-trustworthy tourism-speak. Another source with real authority either claims its Ling Peak in Yanling county at 2115 which is highest, but I couldn't find any info about this Ling peak.

So the question is simple, What is the highest peak in Hunan? How high is it? How high are the next few highest? and Says who? - Metal lunchbox (talk) 13:56, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I eventually went with the Huping mountain as tallest since several more or less reliable sources say so and I can't confirm any of the vague sugestions I see to the contrary. Its just unfortunate that such basic information is so difficult to find (in English) in China. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 10:10, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

A couple of place names

Hello. I'm currently overhauling an article about a German warship that was sent to China during the Boxer Rebellion - the source I'm using is in German and mentions two locations I have not been able to identify (the only google hits are from related articles on de.wiki and thus aren't any help). Does anyone have any idea what locations "Schan-hei-kwan" (sometimes rendered "Schanheikwan") or "Tschin-wan-tau" (sometimes as "Chinwantau") refer to? Thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 14:50, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Pronounced in German, Schan-hei-kwan would sound exactly like Shanhaiguan, at the easternmost point of the Great Wall, where a famous battle took place in 1644 and another one in 1900, the latter being the one you're looking for: Battle of Shanhaiguan (1900). The only place I can think of that sounds like Tschin-wan-tao is Qinhuangdao, but the "h" in "huang" is missing in the German version. Qinhuangdao is in northern China and is a seaport, which makes it a possible location, and it was apparently a station on an important railroad at the time, but I can't find much more about it during the Boxer Uprising. Hope this helps! Madalibi (talk) 15:20, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Ahh... German romanizations of Chinese names. Well, from past experience dealing with German sources, I'm quite certain Madalibi's renderings in Hanyu Pinyin should be correct. The main things to look out for is that in German, "Tsch" would be the closest to Cyrillic "Ч", and "Sch" to Cyrillic "Ш", and that the consonant letters of Hanyu Pinyin were made to be closer to Russian spellings than English ones (which is why "Qing" isn't pronounced "kweeing" like in English phonology). Hence, Schan becomes shan, and Tschin becomes qin. --benlisquareT•C•E 15:22, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Excellent points! If we used the same Romanization as parsecboy's German sources, Tsingtau — Qingdao, famous for its beer, which was started by Germans around the time of the Boxer Uprising — should be Tsching-tau in German. "Kiautschou" (Jiaozhou) in the Kiautschou Bay concession is another odd German Romanization of Chinese. Incidentally, both Tsingtau/Qingdao and Kiautschou/Jiaozhou are relevant to the topic of Germany during the Boxer Uprising. Finally maybe I also should have mentioned that the apparent pinyin equivalent of Tschin-wan-dau is Qinwandao (Qin - wan - dao), but I don't know of such a place name in Chinese. Madalibi (talk) 15:38, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
From the context, e.g. "Besetzung der Befestigungen von Shan-Hei-Kwan und Tschin-Wan-Tau", - "Tschin-Wan-Tau" (or "Tschin-wan-tao") ought to be Qinhuangdao. It is so translated into English in a number or sources, e.g. "the siege of the Shanhaiguan and Qinhuangdao Fortresses". I would not be worrying too much about "huang" becoming "wan"; not-quite regular transcriptions are not unusual for for the period in question. -- Vmenkov (talk) 20:21, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Excellent, thanks for the prompt help with this, I very much appreciate it. Parsecboy (talk) 01:05, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
Just for the record, "Tschin-Wan-Tau" should be 秦王島 (Qinwangdao), the alternate (and older) version of 秦皇島 (Qinhuangdao). _dk (talk) 13:52, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! So 王 (king) became 皇 (emperor). I see some documents mention the alternate name, e.g http://pm.findart.com.cn/1899198-pm.html -- Vmenkov (talk) 18:10, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Large deletion of T'ai chi ch'uan's long-standing health section

There is a discussion happening by WP:FT/N#T'ai chi – neutrality & sourcing regarding a huge deletion of the health benefits section on the taijiquan article by Alexbrn talk, on the basis that the "content was out-dated, superseded, or poorly-sourced".
Please join the discussion. ~ InferKNOX (talk) 13:21, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposing the creation of some new conventions for MOS-ZH

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/China-related articles#Proposing the creation of some new conventions for details. Thank you. LDS contact me 15:42, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Newer translation of Yu Jiao Li?

The article for Yu Jiao Li is at Iu-kiao-li: or, the Two Fair Cousins because that is the title of an 1800s English translation. Is there a newer published translation? WhisperToMe (talk) 01:22, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Linking to ZH Wikipedia in disambiguation hat notes.

I came across an unusual hat note on the article Huang Zhen which reads:

For the Song/Yuan philosopher and textual scholar, see zh:黄震 (1213-1281)

Is this acceptalble or should it be changed to point to English namespace with a red link? Rincewind42 (talk) 12:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that we really shouldn't be redirecting people to non-English cross-wiki pages in hatnotes. Taking our primary reader demographic in mind, it wouldn't help them if they clicked on a link, only to find that it's completely in Chinese. --benlisquareT•C•E 13:22, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
What Ben said. Absolutely no, it is not.
Two good alternatives are to point to English redspace and create a stub including a link to the Chinese article (takes all of three minutes even if you're adding the Chinese characters) or to remove the hatnote and insert the link into the See also or External links section. — LlywelynII 15:08, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Which Chinese company built the Air Control Center of Sudan?

When doing research for Sudan Civil Aviation Authority I found that the Sudanese government gave a contract to a Chinese company called "Fo-Hong" to build the Air Control Center. Is there a way to find out which Chinese company did it? WhisperToMe (talk) 00:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Help

Hi, can somebody help to translate this name "上川洲清安" ? this is suppose to be a Japanese person name. thanks in advance. Mohsen1248 (talk) 13:14, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

This doesn't quite read like a Japanese personal name; assuming that there's a typing mistake somewhere, "上川" is the surname "Uegawa" or "Kamigawa", and "上洲" is the surname "Uesu". "上川清安" is most likely read in Japanese as "Kamigawa Kiyoyasu". In Chinese, this name would be pronounced "Shàngchuān qīngān". The literal translation/meaning would be "up-river pure-calm". --benlisquareT•C•E 15:18, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree with benlisquare that this name looks strange, though nothing is impossible with Japanese names! 上川 is a fairly common surname. I think it would be pronounced Kamikawa or Uekawa rather than Kamigawa or Uegawa. 洲清安 sounds odd as a personal name, but it would read something like Shuseian if it existed. I tried an exact search for "上川洲清安", but all I could find was a page from the 7th Asian Games where a boxer listed as 上川洲清安 appears to have won a medal.[3] Maybe WikiProject Japan could provide more help? Madalibi (talk) 15:43, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, both of you. yes this guy is an Asian Games medalist, English sources only listed him as K. Ueza or sometimes K. Uezu, I found that link you already mentioned and it looks very accurate for Chinese names, but it seems it's not the same for Japanese names from what you say. I didn't know Chinese and Japanese use the same characters, and it seems after all the correct name is "上江州清安". Mohsen1248 (talk) 16:30, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, Japanese surnames use Chinese characters ("kanji" in Japanese). They're pronounced differently from Chinese, but many pronunciations are based on those of the Chinese Tang dynasty (618-907), which is when the Japanese started to borrow Chinese characters. As for the name you're looking for, yes, 上江州 would be the surname Uezu, but it should probably be written 上江洲. And Kiyoyasu for 清安 is right if the initial is confirmed to be "K." If you're not sure about the K., "Seian" is another possibility. Madalibi (talk) 00:56, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
The Japanese names dictionary that I have renders both 上江州 and 上江洲 as Uezu; it's one of those surnames that have written variants (kind of like "Smith" and "Smyth"). They both are valid names, from what I see. --benlisquareT•C•E 02:18, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, very helpful. then his name is most probably Kiyoyasu Uezu. Mohsen1248 (talk) 14:28, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Chinese martial arts

An editor on my talk page needs some help - I'm transferring the discussion here and telling him, hope that's ok.

Hi there Doug. I understand that you do not feel my source from this article meets your criteria, however I was merely linking a generic picture that shows the traditional kung fu family tree of which there are many online. Even if the source is not good enough for Wiki criteria it does not take away from the content that I added. A grandmaster in traditional Chinese kung fu culture is known as Sigung or teachers teacher. I feel this should most definitely be included in the page otherwise it is not accurate or complete. Its like making a page about the grandfather yet only talking about the father, in this case the Sifu. To only mention the word Sifu and not Sigung is a mistake if you are trying to describe accurately a grandmaster of traditional chinese martial arts. I noticed that you even removed that Sifu is a romanization of the original meaning of teacher/father which is TRUE! I hope you understand what I mean, basically Sifu = Master Sigung = Grandmaster. If you dont get it maybe you could pass the case to someone with more knowledge on traditional chinese martial art if you have someone like that? How about if I change the source to this page instead?

Many thanks

Shaolinfist (talk) 17:35, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Shaolinfist (talk) 17:34, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaolinfist (talk • contribs) 16:43, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Surely there are books on this that meet our criteria at WP:RS? Dougweller (talk) 18:48, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

If there are I am not aware of it. However I have practiced traditional chinese martial arts for more than a decade and I can tell you for 100% that Sigung means Grandmaster in Chinese. Check out some more sources if you still don't believe me. 1 2 3 4 5. As I also stated in the information you deleted is that the Grandmaster in a traditional kung-fu family is considered like a Grandfather, the teacher of your teacher. Not only am I from this tradition but I am supplying you with multiple sources which back up my claim. I somehow feel that putting all of these sources onto that one page would not be a good idea.

Shaolinfist (talk) 12:06, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

It's a matter of sources meeting our criteria at WP:RS. I find a number of sources saying that Sigung is grade 7 (or 6). This one[4] clearly meets our criteria and says "of kinship cities. The Cantonese term sifu (pinyin shifu; teacher, literally father) is the title awarded to holders of the fifth degree black belt, but this term traditionally refers to any instructor, regardless of rank, among Chinese systems. Sigung (pinyin shigong; teacher's teacher, literally grandfather) is the title awarded to the sixth and seventh degree ranks. They usually wear red and white belts in Japanese tradition. In the 1990s, the title of professor was awarded to certain eighth and ninth degrees. Only the five founders retain the title sijo (pinyin shizu). Sibak (pinyin shibo) is the title for a student, usually a black belt, who studies directly with a founder. Unlike many Chinese martial arts, Kajukenbo does not use the term for stu-dent, toedai (pinyin tudi), nor does it use the familial term for co-students, sibing (pinyin shixiong)." Dougweller (talk) 13:37, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Dear Doug. I am terribly sorry but despite being from a book that source is describing a particular martial art named Kajukenbo. The source clearly states that it is a Japanese/Korean/Chinese martial art. This is not a valid source for traditional Chinese martial arts. Mine are! I am sure there are many books written on the topic which back up my claim however I feel you would be lucky to find one which is openly published online like the one you showed. I have provided multiple online sources for my claim and can provide many more. Shaolinfist (talk) 23:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese martial arts do not have grades or belts by the way. Although some modern schools may have adopted this system belts and grades in martial arts are a Japanese concept. Shaolinfist (talk) 23:04, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually Doug if you look closer your source actually backs up my claim by distinguishing the Chinese family style system with the Japanese belts one. In the Kajukenbo tradition they give the Chinese title Sigung to a (Japanese) 6th and 7th degree ranked black belt, but only in some hybrid systems is it mixed like this. Its not a good source for traditional Chinese martial art. Shaolinfist (talk) 23:18, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Although I am unable to find an online book about traditional Chinese martial arts as a source here is another source from a mixed martial art which like your source although uses a Japanese belt system also uses Chinese terms in their grading. You can see clearly that according to this source the name Sigung in traditional Chinese martial art means Grandfather or grandmaster. Just as Sifu means Father or master. It is still not a good source however as it is not specifically about traditional Chinese martial art. Another thing which makes it difficult to find reliable sources is the difference in interpretation of the Chinese words into English. The proper translation of Sifu into English is Father/master. The proper translation of Sigung is Grandfather/grandmaster. There are many online Chinese martial arts schools and records which back up my claim, it is pretty common knowledge to anyone familiar with traditional Chinese martial arts be honest. All the best and a happy new year. :) Shaolinfist (talk) 23:44, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

To be honest Doug I have spent at least an hour just tonight trying to convince you that you have made a mistake. I went out of my way to correct that wiki page for the benefit of others and although I appreciate you are trying to help I have lost a lot of time I could have spent working on other things. You clearly do not have experience in this field so as I said before maybe you could pass the case on to someone more knowledgeable in traditional Chinese martial art if you still don't agree with me? Thanks Shaolinfist (talk) 23:57, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Here is another example from a kung fu practitioner of the difference between Japanese and Chinese martial art etiquette: "When I started learning Kung Fu, I was hit with a bit of culture shock. The Karate culture, which is influenced by Japanese ideas of strictness and order, is heavily regimented. You wear clean, white uniforms. You bow. You follow etiquette. Or else.

The Karate culture was (and still is) almost like a military organization with its complex set of rules.

The Kung Fu culture, on the other hand, is quite casual. In all the different Kung Fu schools I’ve attended, there’s never been a standard uniform. My first Kung Fu teacher taught in jeans. Even Grandmaster Wong, who now chooses to wear more traditional Kung Fu suits, was wearing a simple polo shirt and Kung Fu pants when I first met him in 1997." Source Shaolinfist (talk) 10:02, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Here again people talking on a kung fu forum who are saying the same thing. (link) Shaolinfist (talk) 10:56, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion above was transferred from my talk page. Dougweller (talk) 19:55, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Sources about Uighurs in Xinjiang

Hopefully you will find these of use. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:40, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

On this subject, can somebody please create an article about Youhui zhengce (优惠政策, possibly translated as "affirmative action"; what the two Global Times editorials were talking about), which is a very relevant topic for ethnicity in Xinjiang and the rest of China. Shrigley (talk) 09:07, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I found another source about it: http://asaa.asn.au/ASAA2010/reviewed_papers/Leibold-James.pdf - http://www.webcitation.org/6MN4NKfuM WhisperToMe (talk) 09:09, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Started a page on it: Affirmative action in China WhisperToMe (talk) 15:08, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Article blanking

Bible translations into the languages of China was just twice blanked. Restored but 3rd eyes would be welcome. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:37, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Homosexuality in Macau

This article needs fixing; I brought this up recently in talk page. --George Ho (talk) 07:59, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Sources needed for Education in Beijing

I found a journal article related to Education in Beijing but when I searched Google Books I didn't see overall statistics on Beijing education and the like that could diversify the sources. What other sources could help? WhisperToMe (talk) 05:31, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Uighur areas in Beijing

I started a stub on Xinjiangcun but then noticed that Weigongcun, Beijing gets redirected to a section of Minzu University of China which seems pheripheral to the university itself. Would anyone who knows about either Xinjiangcun or Weigongcun know if they should be merged together or if they are the same thing?

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 05:14, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

What is the "People's Grand Auditorium" supposed to be?

This paper states on p. 115:

  • "In the late 1950s, for example, some Beijingers displaced by the construction of the People’s Grand Auditorium in the city’s core moved to Madian"

Does this mean that it is the Great Hall of the People? I want to make sure the link in Madian, Beijing goes to the right place. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:35, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't find any way to confirm this. It looks like there's only one source using it. I did a google search and found basically the same sentence about Madian and nothing else. This suggests that its just a poor translation of Great Hall of the People. If you look at the original name it could easily be translated this way. If it were the standard name of some other building then I'd expect to see more results. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 12:49, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. I changed the sentence to state "Great Hall of the People" and made an internal note about the source. WhisperToMe (talk) 15:44, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Guwen and Classical Chinese

Two articles related to this WikiProject, Guwen and Classical Chinese, have been proposed for a merger . If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you.  — LlywelynII 08:11, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

People's Republic of Zhongtai

I've just nominated this for deletion; the sources are all in Chinese so it would benefit from some project members looking at it.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 05:32, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Shanghai American School

I absolutely have no idea what the fuck is going on here. The last few edits are a complete mess, and it's a complete clusterfuck of random IP editors doing all sorts of things. No one is explaining anything using edit summaries (surprise surprise), and I'm not making heads or tails out of anything. I'm not going to bother with this, but if anyone does know what to do, please go for it. --benlisquareT•C•E 11:55, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Personally I find it really suspicious that within the span of a few hours, a billion anonymous IP users from Vietnam, China, Turkey, Israel and Brazil show up have a cocktail party at the article. What's more, essentially the same bunch are also having a cocktail party over at Xinjiang conflict (which introduces a few new partygoers from Greece, India and South Africa). To me, it smells like an off-wiki internet forum is involved. --benlisquareT•C•E 12:04, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Jackie Chan

This article needs fixing. It has some uncited statements. --George Ho (talk) 06:08, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Review has been initiated: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Jackie Chan/archive1. --George Ho (talk) 21:59, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

ethnic composition for all census of Guizhou and Yunnan

Where can I get ethnic composition for all census of Guizhou and Yunnan?--Kaiyr (talk) 10:33, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

ethnic composition for all townships of PRC

Where can I get ethnic composition for all townships of PRC?--Kaiyr (talk) 08:43, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Yang Tiao

Hello all,

I came across the above article, and it seems there's something "off" about it, so I wanted to run it past those more knowledgeable.

It was created all in the same edit, by an editor with no other contributions, but is a very well laid-out article. The disambig links etc. at the top may have been copied from another article (Cao Cao?) with the names changed. I thought it might be a copyvio, but the text I've searched for doesn't come up anywhere else online, nor do the English, Traditional or Simplified versions of the name.

The image in the infobox is actually that of Guo Jia, and all of the other images are either unlabelled or labelled incorrectly as the subject. He doesn't appear to be mentioned anywhere else in Wikipedia.

It's such a long article that its difficult to pinpoint whether the facts are accurate (there are no references), but for example, in the section Yang_Tiao#Alliance_against_Dong_Zhuo it says that Yang Tiao gave his horse to Cao Cao, but in Campaign against Dong Zhuo it says that it was Cao Hong who gave up his "steed".

I'm a bit baffled. To be frank, if it is a hoax, it's an unusually elaborate one. If it is a real person, then surely there would be a mention elsewhere, and at least some of the facts need either sourced or corrected. Can anyone help? I will leave a message for the article creator pointing them here.

Many thanks. --Kateshortforbob talk 17:53, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm 100% sure it's a hoax. The tell-tale sign is the nonsensical "Chinese name" that's clearly derived from the pinyin instead of the other way around. Everything else Chinese also seems to be Google Translated from English. We've had hoax Three Kingdoms biographies before. Some people just like to put their fanfiction on place where they don't belong. If there's a fast way to get rid of the article, please do so. _dk (talk) 18:11, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Feedback request: VisualEditor special character inserter

The developers are working towards offering mw:VisualEditor to all users at about 50 Wikipedias that have complex language requirements. Many editors at these Wikipedias depend on being able to insert special characters to be able to write articles.

A special character inserter tool is available in VisualEditor now. They would like to know what you think about this tool, especially if you speak languages other than English. To try the ⧼visualeditor-specialcharacterinspector-title⧽ tool, please:

Screenshot of TranslateWiki interface
The “insert” pulldown on the task bar of VisualEditor will lead you to the ‘⧼visualeditor-specialcharacterinspector-title⧽’ tool.
Screenshot of Special Characters tool
This is the ⧼visualeditor-specialcharacterinspector-title⧽ inserter. Your feedback on this tool is particularly important.

To let the developers know what you think, please leave them a message with your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on Mediawiki.org or here at the English Wikipedia at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. It is really important that the developers hear from as many editors as possible. Thank you, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:30, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Help validating sources at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Potted milk tea?

Greetings, if anyone reads Chinese, we could use some help determining if Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Potted milk tea meets Notability. It's an AFC draft, so you can just type and sign your comments at the top of the page if you have any opinions to offer. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:33, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Notable Aisin Gioro

See list here: Aisin_Gioro#Notable_Aisin-Gioros. Am not knowledgable enough about Aisin Gioro to make a judgement, and internet access is quite limited, but there are some very strange entries that do not have internal articles or sources. EG:

  • Jinliang (金量), fifth generation of Dao Quang, Prince Chun (醇王) of Blood (亲王) 1st rank of prince, great-grandson of Prince Zaitao, and great-grandnephew of Guangxu Emperor, Xuantong (Puyi) emperor is his grand uncle
  • R. Jin Xing F., Pretender to the Throne (Born 1977)

And others. Would value if someone knowleable in Chinese history could have a look and delete any spurious entities.--LT910001 (talk) 01:59, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Archiving

Have decreased the archive time to 30 days, so that some of the older threads here (eg from December last year) might be removed more expeditiously. --LT910001 (talk) 02:50, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

RFC

Could use some fresh eyeballs and voices at this previously stale merge proposal, splitting the content at Opium Wars into the articles First Opium War and Second Opium War and turning the page into a dab between them, to avoid the existing content fork. — LlywelynII 13:44, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Citations of working paper

I noticed a user changed citations in Xinjiangcun, Korean people in Beijing, and Uyghur people in Beijing from published books to a working paper from 2014. From my understanding it's better to cite final publications instead of working papers. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Messed up Chinese script

I recently read through the article red envelope which is rated as top importance by this Wikiproject but is in need of allot of work. However, some sentences containing Chinese script are confusing me. For example "The act of requesting for red packets is normally called (Mandarin): 討紅包, 要利是, (Cantonese): 逗利是." Isn't Cantonese a different pronunciation of the same characters rather than completely difference characters and is the name given as Cantonese really only used by Cantonese speakers or is it a wider South of China phenomenon. Rincewind42 (talk) 16:01, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

It's natural that there are regional differences in terminologies. You can't really use a general statement like "different pronunciations of the same characters" and apply to everything. In particular, the text as presented in the article is correct: Mandarin speakers call the red envelopes 紅包 (hongbao) and Cantonese speakers call them 利是 (lai see). _dk (talk) 18:29, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Shanghai Rego International School

Hello WikiProject China! I recently came across this page while patrolling. There is a huge controversy section here which is continuously being expanded with unsourced content by over-enthusiastic anonymous IPs (probably the students); I then tagged bombed it. Request any willing user to take a look, clean it up and watchlist it if needed. Sincerely, Ugog Nizdast (talk) 07:58, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Idea: Writing Wikipedia articles on academic Sinology books

I notice that if a book has at least two "book reviews" in an academic database, it's eligible for a Wikipedia article. Having articles on books really helps Wikipedians use it better since the reviews say a lot about the books themselves. I've started some articles like Sunflower Splendor, Born Red, Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China, and De l'un au multiple.

  • Step 1: Search for "book reviews" on a university database (University of Houston Library is still open for searching) - Type in the name of the book and then filter results by "book review".
  • Step 2: Go to Wikipedia:RX and request the articles
  • Step 3: Have fun writing the article!

You can add additional notes in the talk pages about issues raised in the book reviews.

If someone wants to try some, I found (these have at least one book review in an academic journal):

  • Ray Huang, Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth Century Ming China, Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1974. Pp. XVI, 385.
  • Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society. Edited by ARTHUR P. WOLF. Pp. xii + 377. Stanford: STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1974.
  • Stephen Owen. The Poetry of Meng Chiao and Han Yü. New Haven, Ct. Yale University Press. 1975. x + 294 pages. $15.

WhisperToMe (talk) 09:38, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea of creating articles on Sinology books. However most articles on sinologists are barely more than a stub. See Herbert Giles for example, he authored the first Chinese-English dictionary and also won a award for his Biographical Dictionary; there are no individual article on his works. There should be a Bibliography of China article as well. (already we have Bibliography of Christianity in China) Solomon7968 11:32, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
Google Books may be a great way to expand Giles: Take notes of what the books say about him and bulk up his article. I did that with Vincenz Hundhausen. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:18, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Another idea:

So if there are more book reviews something can be written about the book about Caizi jiaren. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:10, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Another: Sarvey of Recent Developments in China (Mainland and Taiwan), 1985-1986. Edited by HUNGDAH CHIU, with the assistance of JAW-LING JOANNE CHANG. [Baltimore, Md.: Occasional Papers/ Reprints Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, 1987. 207 pp. US$8.00.] WhisperToMe (talk) 07:31, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Giles is a great topic! I added a few online resources at his article. But people should be careful in using his Biographical Dictionary, which is charming but unreliable. ch (talk) 07:58, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

@CWH Another editor raised concern over the unreliability of Giles here. I am wondering do you have any source for the claim? If yes then it should be added to the article. Solomon7968 16:42, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for asking. The quote from Wilkinson is from the "New Manual" of 2013, which is not (yet?) on Google. I have the 2013 version before me as I write, and the quote is on p. 157. However, I agree with you that the function of Wikisource is simply to make resources available. It's up to editors to make careful use of them.
That raises the whole problem of online vs. print, and the unfortunate temptation to prefer online sources even if they are out of date or unreliable (I certainly prefer a good online source to a good print source, but not an unreliable online one). But that's a matter for another day! ch (talk) 21:34, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Discuss renaming of Luxury goods of China

Discuss renaming of Luxury goods of China at Talk:Luxury goods of China. Main issue is a title that reflects content of the article, which is about shopping, not about production. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:16, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Xiaolongnü, the impossibility of underestimation of some trait of

Of Xiaolongnü, we read:

Jin Yong describes her physical appearances as "skin as white as snow, beautiful and elegant beyond convention and cannot be underestimated, but appears cold and indifferent" (全身雪白，面容秀美絕俗，清麗秀雅，莫可逼視，神色間卻是冰冷淡漠)

My knowledge of Japanese gives me a pretty good understanding of the (very easy) first four characters, but then, Chinese ignoramus that I am, I get stuck. What is it that cannot be underestimated? (And really, it can't be underestimated? The context suggests that whatever it is that's being described is being praised to the skies; thence it can't be overestimated.) -- Hoary (talk) 12:14, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The English word is "haughty;" the haunting beauty of the the fairy queen is combined with her obvious indifference to any human consideration. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:25, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 17:30, 4 February 2014 (UTC).

Some assessment on a move request of Li Na

Not sure how famous in a historical prospective Li Na the tennis player is (me being mostly a big tennis fan)...so I thought maybe some more perspective might help in this move request at Talk:Li Na (tennis). I'm guessing the tennis player probably should be moved to simply "Li Na" as the requester wants, but better to get more input since the other Li Na's are out of my comfort zone in accessing properly. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:28, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Complex characters in GA review

Hi everybody! I'm doing a good article (GA) review for the article Daughter of Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei and I'm hesitant about an issue. On the one hand, the official page on GA criteria states that only five pages of the "Manual of Style" should be respected for GA, and "What the Good article criteria are not" (an essay) states that "all other parts of the MoS are optional". The MoS for China-related articles, however, says that we should use complex characters for historical topics and simplified ones for those related to the PRC. My question: do you think WP policy allows me to request the nominator to change all his citations from simplified to complex characters? For those who want to take a look, the review is here. Madalibi (talk) 06:23, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't seem to find that exact phrasing in the Manual of Style, but I see a couple of problems with requesting the nominator to change his citations:
  • The actual referenced work, with the page number, edition, and company cited by the editor, might be only published in simplified characters.
  • Simplified characters are just not ambiguous because of the context; traditional characters at the point-of-WP-delivery provide extremely marginal benefit.
  • Reduced accessibility to most non-native learners of Chinese (en.WP's primary concern, but also the vast majority of native speakers), who are more comfortable with simplified.
Shrigley (talk) 06:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
While I prefer Traditional characters instead for pre-1949 Chinese subject matter, I don't think this issue should be pressed too strictly for reasons Shrigley listed above. Most paramount should be the sourcing issue: if the source gives Simplified Chinese characters only, the citations should be in Simplified Chinese unless a Traditional Chinese version of the same quote is found. A corollary of the above is the reverse: if a source was originally in Traditional Chinese, like the vast majority of pre-1949 material, then the citations should be in Traditional Chinese as well. I personally don't think the simp vs trad debate is one we should be having on the English Wikipedia. _dk (talk) 08:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
Shrigley and _dk: thank you both for your answers! You have convinced me that the issue is not important enough to request the editor to change the citations to the traditional form. Just for the record, the citations were from the Book of Wei, the History of the Northern Dynasties, and Zizhi Tongjian. Madalibi (talk) 14:36, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Chinese name

Got a less familiar Chinese name here and I'm not sure which way round it should be (I've seen both quoted on chess websites). Is Ma Qun the right way round in this article (i.e. Ma = surname) or should it be "Qun Ma" (Qun = surname)? Regards. MaxBrowne (talk) 10:50, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi MaxBrowne! I checked Chinese-language websites and Ma is indeed the surname. This page in English gives you a game by Ma against Ding Liren, another Chinese player. You can also go to this page in Chinese and try an electronic search for 马群, which are the Chinese characters for Ma Qun. Incidentally, it might be nice to add these characters to the article! Regards, Madalibi (talk) 14:47, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Opium Wars

FYI, there's a notice at Wikipedia_talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board about the Opium Wars article -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 10:05, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

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