A couple of years ago, a friend gave me a T-shirt from the Hard Rock Cafe in Beijing, China. I wore that shirt a few days ago and someone asked me if I’d been to China. If you know me, or follow this blog somewhat, you know that I did make what turned out to be a rather historic trip to China — more than 50 years ago. I’ve mention that trip several times over the years in this blog — if you’re interested, you can check the archives.
But, as often happens, I got off track. While discussing the shirt I mentioned that when I was in China, there not only was no Hard Rock Cafe, Beijing was called Peking. The person I was conversing with didn’t seem that young, but he claimed he never knew that the capital city of China was previously Peking.
Well, that got me to thinking — and — my extensive research juices flowing. I think most of my life I had been taught, and believed, that the capital city of China was Peking. But Peking only became Beijing after 1979 when the Pinyin method of conveying Mandarin in the Roman alphabet was adopted.
There are (at least) three different methods used to romanize (translate into the Latin alphabet) Chinese words — especially Mandarin: Wade-Giles System, Chinese Postal Mat Romanization, and Pinyin.
Just so you know that I really did do a little research, here’s how the systems compare.
Wade-Giles System:
Developed by Thomas Wade in the mid-19th century and revised by Herbert Giles
It was widely used in the West until the late 20th century
It was primarily used in academic and scholarly work
Chinese Postal Map Romanization:
Developed by the Chinese Imperial Post Office in the early 20th century
It was used between 1906 and the 1950s
It was designed to standardize place names on postal maps, often combining dialects and regional pronunciations
It was a mishmash of systems — sometimes reflecting “non-Mandarin dialects (e.g., Cantonese, Wu.)
It lacked uniform spelling rues and was more “practical” than “academic.”
Pinyin:
Developed by Zhou Youguang and a PRC government committee in the 1950s
It was official in China since 1958, but is now standard internationally
Its purpose was to teach pronunciation, simplify literacy, and standardize romanization
It’s now the official system in mainland China, the UN, and most international publications.
If you’ve got some spare time and are truly bored sometime, you might want to look up the inventor of the Wade-Giles System — Thomas Francis Wade. From what I can tell, he was one of those all-round British Empire good guys — or a “good egg” as they say. He lived for a while on the Lonian Islands, fought in the Opium Wars in china, and still found time to learn Mandarin. And then figured out how to write down these funny symbols in letters that people could understand — or as Thomas might have said, in “proper” letters.
Anyhow, I can tell people that I have T-shirt written in Pinyin…..
— 30 —