Tianmu: A Place By Any Other Name...
By John Duncan

          We live in the suburbs of Taipei. Suburbs is really a misnomer, as there really is no such thing here with so many people. There is very little transition from downtown to perimeter regions in this hazy valley surrounded by beautiful mountains.
          Any how, which I always write as two words, our particular area, at the North end of the city, at the base of Yangmingshan National park, is called Tianmu. This is dubbed the 'foreigner's ghetto' of Taipei. Indeed, there is a much higher population of foreign folk compared to other parts of Taipei, and especially other parts of Taiwan. It can be slightly easier living up here for expats, though language barriers still easily abound. This is where one can find the Western grocery stores and a multitude of Western restaurants, and one's chances of finding an English speaker are somewhat higher.
           The focus of the pictures below look at Taiwan's problem with arriving at a decision for a standardized system for the romanization of Chinese. At current, the romanization seems to be a mix of the Pinyin and Wade-Giles systems, with some random guesswork at times.
           As the Chinese characters show in each picture, the variations are indeed for the same word. However, because different systems are in effect, a foreigner trying to find his/her way around can have a difficult time.
           The way I have written this name - Tianmu - is in adherence with the Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. This, to me, and to many others, is the most comprehensive of the systems, and leads to the least redundancy. Whether out of further inadequacies and issues within and between systems, to shun the Mainland-bred Hanyu Pinyin system, or simply to be difficult, another system - Tongyong Pinyin - is now in the limelight. The proper pronunciation of Tianmu, given here in IPA phonetic format, is:

*

* Notes
1. The picture depicting the TianLu does not have the same second character as the other variations. This may be a case of the "random guesswork" system in effect. While the characters do not match the others, the corresponding map in the picture is most definitely of Tianmu, and the area one is being welcomed to is also most definitely Tianmu. I have never heard this area referred to as Tianlu before.

2. In point of Note number 1 and the idea that perhaps care was not taken even with getting the correct pronunciation of Tianmu right (as shown by the Chinese characters), this further picture of a small park in Tianmu may be yet another variation:

3. As seen above, three of the romanizations for Tianmu are standard road signs. This is anything but standard, showing that even within a single medium there is no standardized system.

4. A mere a point of interest: These two signs are actually found at the same intersection! The TianMu sign is seen travelling North on Tianmu North Road, while the tiemu one is seen travelling South on the same street.

Please look on now to other region and street name variations the English-speaking community is faced with...

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1