The week yields....
BLOGS:
- Taiwan's booze hounds embrace the e-bike.
- Another outstanding pic from Craig F, who has been an inspiration to me in many ways.
- Famous for being famous. Kim Kardashian, eat your heart out.
- Police called after Taiwanese husband refuses sex. Love the headline, it implies the police were called to provide the sex that the husband wouldn't.
- Half of all Taiwanese share just ten surnames.
- Far Eastern Sweet Potato: Taiwan's China spy problem
- Climbing Wuling on folding bikes. Ouch.
MEDIA:
- Tsai asks supporters to give more space to Taiwan = ROC, ROC = Taiwan formula of the DPP. In my view, the DPP has little choice but to embrace a formula like this, hollowing out the ROC from within because (1) they don't have much room for anything else and (2) the public is already going down this road with their reworking of KMT symbols and slogans, like the ROC flag, and the way the use of da4 lu4 which was intended to create links between Taiwan and China but now signifies a place full of weirdos not at all like Taiwanese.
- China Times: US wealth gap is a warning for the ROC.
- How can Beijing cozy up to India while claiming its territory? An interesting tactical problem.
- China's illicit money is a river to the world, worth 10% of GDP.
- PRC official travels all over Taiwan, playing game of being local, effectively.
- Another excellent Commonwealth piece on how the Chinese tourist money -- surprise, surprise -- is only benefitting a few.
- China Times: Join forces with China on the Senkakus
- AirAsia to launch new Taiwan-Philippines route.
- Taiwan to purchase two Perry-class frigates from US
- US, Japan begin new war games. China whines, yowls. An Indian review of the situation
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
2 comments:
>>Half of all Taiwanese share just ten surnames.
I've noticed that people in East Asia have a limited pool of surnames while those in the West have a limited one of given names.
As well, people in East Asia have a huge pool of (theoretically, hundreds of millions of) given names while the Westerners have a large pool of surnames.
At our office of 45 predominantly male coworkers (software company), we have six Michaels, six Chris' and five Davids on paper.
They asked to be called "Mike", "Michael", "Chris", "Christopher", "David" and "Dave". Still there are not enough variations to give each an individual identity by first name.
In practice, we often call them by their last name.
You might be familiar with the situation, "Michael".
Japan seems to be the exception (again) in East Asia:
"Japanese family names are extremely varied: according to estimates, there are over 100,000 different surnames in use today in Japan...This diversity is in stark contrast to the situation in other Sinosphere nations, there being very few Chinese surnames (a few hundred common, 20 comprise half the population), and similarly Korean names (250 names, of which 3 comprise almost half the population) and Vietnamese names (about 100 family names, of which 3 comprise 60% of the population). This reflects different history: while Chinese surnames have been in use for millennia and were often reflective of an entire clan or adopted from nobles (without any genetic relationship) – and were thence transferred to Korea and Vietnam via noble names, modern Japanese family names date only to the 19th century, following the Meiji restoration, and were chosen creatively. The recent introduction of surnames has two additional effects: Japanese names became widespread when the country had a very large population (over 30,000,000 during the early Meiji era – see Demographics of Imperial Japan) instead of dating to ancient times (population estimated at 300,000 in 1 CE, for instance – see Demographics of Japan before Meiji Restoration), and since little time has passed, Japanese names have not experienced as significant surname extinction as has occurred in the much longer history in China."
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_name
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