After seeing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon last night I’m reminded of something I wondered a few years ago.
What is the name of the capital city of China.
Is is Peking or is it Beijing (sorry if I did not sell it correctly)
I always remember as a child that it was called Peking. Only more recently (last several years) have I heard it called Beijing.
Now in the film, the subtitles said Peking. However, the actors were clearly saying Beijing.
Is this perhaps a Cantonese/Madarin thing?
TIA
It could also be Peiping.
I believe this has to do with different systems/methodologies that have been used to transliterate Chinese into Roman characters. Different methods have been in favor at different times in the past, so the Romanized spellings vary. Someone on the board who knows a lot more about linguistics and Chinese than I do will fill in the details, I’m sure.
Peking and Beijing are transliterations of the same name. Peking is from the Wade-Giles transliteration (IIRC) and Beijing is from the more recent Pinyin system. I’ the same for Canton and Guangzhong.
Two of the more commmon romanization styles are Wade-Giles, which was in favor up until about 15 years ago, and Pinyin, which is more commonly used today. “Peking”, “Nanking”, “Mao Tse-Tung” and “Chuang-ji” are examples of Wade-Giles romanization, while “Bejing”, “Nanjing”, “Mao Zedong” and “Zhuang-zi” are their Pinyin equivalents. Many proponents of Pinyin say that it’s closer to how the words are actually pronounced. I don’t speak any form of Chinese, so I can’t say if they’re right.
This is just a western thing, by the way. The pronunciations by native Mandarin and Cantonese speakers haven’t changed at all. In addition, other countries that use Chinese characters often use their own pronunciations. For example, my students were rather shocked when I told them I had never heard of Mo Taku-Tou. It was only later that I found out they were using the Japanese name for Mao Zedong.
After reviewing, I just noticed that Osakadave has said essentially the same thing as me, but much more concisely. Sigh.
–sublight.
I think Peiping is a different character on the ‘ping’. There was an alternate name for the “north capital” (Bei = north, jing = capital) for a while. I’ve forgotten when it was, though (post 1910?). Canton and Guangzhou are also some kind of mix-up (I think); IIRC, Canton was based on the trader name for the city, not the Wade-Giles spelling. (But I’m not positive on that one!)
Both Peking and Beijing are pronounced the same way: (approximately) bay-JING (not bay-zhing; ‘j’ like ‘joke’). The Wade-Giles system used the English alphabet as a symbol set, with some letters not sounding like the usual English pronunciation of those letters at all (hence K and K’, T and T’, etc.). You have to learn Wade-Giles to pronounce it properly, rather than making the letters sound like what you think they should sound like.
Pinyin (the current romanized spelling system) is closer to the common English pronunciation of the letters, but you still have to learn it to get the sounds right. English speakers (including American English) have a better chance of getting close when reading Pinyin without any training. I don’t think you could get close when ‘winging it’ with W-G.
Phew. Haven’t dusted off my Chinese for a LOOooooonng time! And my pinyin recall is even worse… wo hen ben! I can’t even remember how to say my Chinese is terrible!
wo shuo zhong guo hua hen bu hao!
Wow, I remembered! Last time I was there was 1989…
Oh, and also, Pinyin is the system preferred of the current government, which is why it’s used on maps, in the news, and so on.
… but for some reason, people still call it “Peking Duck”.
RE: Wade-Giles, if you wanted to write something that was pronounced the way most people usually pronounce ‘Peking’, it would be spelled P’i-K’ing or P’e-K’ing. The ’ is an aspiration mark.
As far as why the spelling was Peking in the subtitles, where was the film made (or subtitled)? Because the Pinyin spelling was introduced by the Communists, it is questionable whether it would be used in a RC (Republic of China/Taiwan) production. I had a Taiwanese language teacher who bristled at anyone using Pinyin spellings.
Or, they may have kept the older spelling to set a period/era in mind… Or it may have been just the way it was translated, who was doing the translation, who was doing the editing, etc. People who are comfortable with Wade-Giles tend to use it regardless of convention.
(if they called it Beijing Duck, would you be certain it was the same dish?) MMMMmmm. Miss the food, too.
Peking is neither Wade-Giles nor pinyin; it’s a Post Office spelling (the Wade-Giles romanization would be Peiching).
As to the difference between Peking (Peiching, Beijing, whatever) and Peiping: peiching means “northern capital”, which it was during most of the Yuan, Ming, and Ch’ing dynasties. After the revolution, however, the Republican capital was at Nanking (“southern capital”); Peking was renamed Peiping (“northern peace”) to signify that it was no longer the capital. After the Communist takeover, it became the capital again and reverted to the older name.
Sublight writes:
Yes, it’s important to remember that, although Japanese does use (among others) Chinese characters (kanji), they’re pronounced very differently. A notable Japanese legend is that Minamoto Yoshitsune (half-brother of the first shogun) escaped his persecutors and became…Genghis Khan! Why? Apparently for no other reason than that “Minamoto Yoshitsune” and “Genghis Khan” are written using the same kanji (the pronounciation of those characters in Mandarin is similar to “Genghis Khan”).
Interesting info on Peking being postal code spelling - Peking/Beijing was actually used as an example of Wade-Giles vs. Pinyin in my Chinese History class! Guess even the teachers (and in this case, I think the textbook, too) can’t be trusted to be accurate all the time. Assumptions, assumptions! Amazing which facts you have to check.
Thanks for the info, I’ll add it to my file of Educational Urban Legends.
Given the fact that all of the previous replies have mentioned the Wade-Giles vs. Pinyin transliteration systems, I’m having second thoughts about this response, but…I recall having learned once that Peking was the name given to the capital by the Mongols, who ruled China for a time as the Yuan Dynasty, and that Beijing is the Mandarin name.
Peking vs. Beijing is a matter of Wade-Guiles vs. Pinyin, or Taiwan vs. Mainland China, or even democracy vs. communist. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed in Mainland China, but financed with money from Taiwan, and the subtitles therefore use the Wade-Guiles system.
From a purely academic perspective, Pinyin is much superior than the Wade-Guilese system, and it is also the more popular one too (1+ billion in China vs. 20+ million in Taiwan). The US Library of Congress has recently switched is catalog of Chinese books from Wade-Guiles to Pinyin, and most libraries across the globe are following suite. There’s even debate in Taiwan on whether or not they should switch to Pinyin as well. Hardliners oppose the change since it signifies a defeat by the communist China, while others insist the matter should not be politicized…