FW: Corrections of zone.tab for CN entries

Thu Dec 13 19:55:17 UTC 2001

-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Fok [mailto:anthony at thizlinux.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 5:19 PM
To: Paul Eggert
Cc: mgy1912 at home.com; tz at elsie.nci.nih.gov; yaoz at vidar.niaaa.nih.gov
Subject: Re: Corrections of zone.tab for CN entries

On Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 04:23:42PM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote:
> > b. Kashgar is also in Xinjiang and there is no such region as
> > "Eastern Turkestan".  That region is commonly call "Southern
> > Xinjiang".
>
> In English, the region is far more commonly called Eastern Turkestan,
> even today.  At least, that's what Google says (2650 hits versus 766).

Actually, if my understanding is correct, the term "Eastern Turkestan"
refers to the historic name of the region, as a country, when it
was outside China's rule for brief periods in history.  This region
returned to Chinese rule in the 19th century during the Qing Dynasty,
and called "Xinjiang", Chinese for "New Territory".  Nowadays, the whole
province is called Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Reasons that "Eastern Turkestan" came up more often than "southern
Xinjiang" include:

  * Eastern Turkestan = Xinjiang, not just southern Xinjiang (AFAIK).
    Try a search on Xinjiang vs. Eastern Turkestan, and Xinjiang
    is far far more common by orders of magnitude.  Google says
    103000 hits versus 3160.  (and 2600 for "east turkestan",
    1190 for "southern xinjiang"... Wow, Google has grown!  :-)

  * The term Xinjiang is relatively newer (since 19th century),
    and most history books written before that period uses the old name.
    Xinjiang was called Xiyu (the West Region), Huigu, and a few other
    names in Chinese literature.

  * There are some vocal separatist movements who want to "Free Eastern
    Turkestan", not too unlike "Free Tibet"...

Indeed, it seems that nowadays only the separatists are calling the
modern Xinjiang province as "Eastern Turkestan", to be interpreted as
the Eastern Country of the Turks.  Needless to say, at least some Chinese
would find that offensive.

Also, as a Hong-Kong Chinese myself, I had no idea what "Eastern Turkestan"
is until I actually looked it up on the Internet.  I am sure most Chinese,
including the Uygur and Han people, would be scratching their heads
wondering what "Eastern Turkestan" is.  Besides, it appears that Eastern
Turkestan = the whole Xinjiang, not just part of it, so again, it is not
appropriate to call that timezone "Eastern Turkestan" when it is just the
westmost region surrounding Kashgar that is within that timezone.

Therefore, I recommend changing the comment to something more informative

	west Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Eastern Turkestan), China

That should better suit the needs of both Chinese and non-Chinese.  :-)

I have also revised other comment entries for China to make them more
informative.  Seriously, we Chinese are utterly confused when we are asked
to choose a timezone during Linux installation.  I myself had no idea why
the 5 cities were chosen until I finally compared a world timezone map with
a China map.  :-)  In fact, ALL major Chinese Linux distributions have
edited zone.tab to add Asia/Beijing and to revise the comments.
(Turbolinux Chinese and Red Flag Linux, for instance.)  So, this does point
to a real usability (not political) problem.  Therefore, I have made
all 5 comments more verbose.  They may be long, but not as long as a few
entries for Canada.  :-)

I have also changed "Macao" to "Macau".  Why?  :-)
  1. Macau is the official name (in both English and Portuguese).
     See www.macau.gov.mo, for example.
  2. On recent trips to Macau, I can no longer find any signs that say
     "Macao".
  3. ISO 3166 says MO = Macau in English;  MO = Macao in French.
  4. On Google,  Macau: 810000 hits;  Macao: 311000 hits.

A patch is attached in this message.  Please verify and apply.
Many thanks!  :-)

> merely a matter of which city is the largest in a particular region.
> For more details, please see the Theory file.
> 
> > On TV, radio, it is always saying "It is now 20' clock Beijing Time."
> > I haven't heard of "China time" before.
> 
> Interesting.  Are these announcements in the Chinese language, or in
> the English language?

I would guess both.  Let me watch CCTV more often.  :-)

Anyhow, it would actually sound weird if someone says "Xianzai shi Zhongguo
shijian xiawu liang dianzhong."  (It is now 2 o'clock China Time.)

> It's not clear to me that "Kashi" versus "Kashgar" is a pinyin versus
> non-pinyin issue, as the name "Kashgar" is not a Chinese one.  "Kashi"
> is the pinyin version of the Chinese name for "Kashgar".  The city's
> population is about 3/4 Uighur, so calling it "Kashi" is a bit like
> calling the capital of Mongolia "Ulan Bator" (the anglicization of the
> Russian name).

According to the Xinjiang provincial web site, "Kashi" is short for
"Kashige'er", which is the long-form Chinese name for "Kashgar".
Anyhow, personally, I think "Kashige'er" and "Kashgar" are close enough,
so I am not too worried about it either.  :-)

Cheers,

Anthony

-- 
Anthony Fok Tung-Ling
ThizLinux Laboratory   <anthony at thizlinux.com> http://www.thizlinux.com/
Debian Chinese Project <foka at debian.org>
http://www.debian.org/intl/zh/
Come visit Our Lady of Victory Camp!           http://www.olvc.ab.ca/

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