More on Romanisation of Chinese Characters

Romanisation of Chinese characters in Taiwan is a bit complicated. The "world standard" if there is one is hanyu pinyin, which the government here (KMT) has just declared the official system. The previous govt. (DPP) under Chen Shui Bian was fiercely nationalist and anti mainland China (considered them the communist enemy) and didn't wan't to use the system used by mainland China so stupidly decided to make up their own system called tongyong pinyin. The system itself has both advantages and disadvantages over hanyu pinyin, but as hanyu has become standard in non Chinese speaking countries it put Taiwan at a disadvantage as documents produced in Taiwan using tongyong could only be understood with some difficulty and confusion. There are still alot of companies and schools using older systems as well, such as wade-giles , yale, chinese postal map, MPS II , and others. Complicating things in Taiwan is the fact that city and county governments might be either KMT or DPP, so despite the national government declaring Hanyu the official system, it's up to local government to erect public signage, and individual companies can employ any system they choose, probably depending on what they have historically used or their political leanings. Also, updating romanised signage is not a high priority here, there are not large numbers of foreigners in Taiwan. Students wishing to study the Chinese language in Taiwan for the most part need to learn a phonetic system called bopomofo which takes about a week to learn (that is to say you will be given a week to learn it) and is far superior to any of the romanisation systems. It also can be placed right next to the chinese character so pronunciation of an unknown character can be immediately known without refering to a different text or dictionary. It is also a convenient input method for computers and text messages.
Wikipedia has an excellent article on Romaniation of Chinese in Taiwan HERE.

Back in Taiwan

Yes I am back for another blast of megolopis madness, and it only took five minutes for a couple of things to remind me where I was. Firstly, going through customs in Taipei was as effortless as it possibly could be, with nobody in the airport uttering a single word to me. While waiting to collect by bag I was reminded of the Taiwanese peoples love for expensive branded accessories, new hights being reached with one dapper fellow sporting a Louis Vuitton bum bag (that is to say fanny pack)! The bus which delivered me into the guts of the city was sporting a huge effigy of Hello Kitty, I should have known it wouldn't take long for her to track me down. I have been fortunate in finding some agreeable accommodation, living in Qilian area with a couple of Taiwanese people. This was after looking at a couple of real dives, one "studio" apartment which was completely windowless (and NT$9000 per month, extra for aircon use)! Today I began my Chinese language classes. My classmates are a mixed bag as usual, with three Indonesian Chinese, 2 French Chinese, a Belizian and a Mongolian.

Back in Class

I started attending Chinese language classes again on monday. I studied for six months here in Taipei last lear, and will complete a three month semester this year. I've seven classmates. a German man, a Japanese woman, a Korean girl, two Indonesian Chinese girls and two Indonesian Chinese boys. I have classes from monday to friday. Learning Chinese is quite, that is to say, very difficult, as I mentioned in an earlier post, in fact alot of what my teacher is saying I don't understand too well, as classes are conducted entirely in Chinese. This doesn't seem to matter too much - when I was a complete beginner I understood very little of what was going on but still managed to learn a great deal. Thus far I am able to write around 350 traditional characters (as opposed to thier simplified forms introduced by Mao in mainland China), still a long way from the 2000 or so you need to be "fluent". I can also speak more that I can write, from where the real rewards for my efforts come from, being able to make myself understood out on the street puts a smile on my dial.

Studying Chinese in Taipei

Today I had a placement test for my Mandarin Chinese course. I studied here in Taipei for six months last year, and the test was to determine whether I could continue where I left off or if I would need to repeat some lessons. Fortunately I don't need to repeat any lessons.
To be honest I find Chinese a difficult language to learn, especially the writing, but I've surprised myself at how much I've learned so far, and being able to hold conversations with people in the street is a real buzz, and more than enough incentive to continue.
Walking to my school reminded me of a couple of things about Taiwan. It's amazing to me that when I come back here after a few months away to number of shops and restaraunts that have gone out of business or have opened up, the turnover here is really high.
One really good thing I was reminded of is the way blind people are treated on the metro. There are always attendents to escort people on and off the trains, and once on there is always somone willing to help, infact it's often the closest person to them, a complete stranger will just take them by the arm and offer assistance, and more than once I've seen sombody help a blind person off the train and out of the station, even though it wasn't their stop.