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Showing posts with the label Chinese

Who is Shashibiya?

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The name Shakespeare  (transcribed  Shashibiya) first appeared     in a Chinese language publication in a translation of Milner’s The History of England in 1857. But it was the publication of Lin Shu’s Tales from Shakespeare in 1904 that first brought the Bard to a wider Chinese audience.  Lin Shu remarketed Shashibiya for a Chinese readership. He promoted the plays as traditional ‘stories of gods and spirits’. One of these tales was used for the first professional production of Shakespeare in China: a staging of The Merchant of Venice in 1913. Read more :  Shakespeare in China   (3 minute free read on Medium)

Beijing or Peking?

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This is a question which still causes great confusion. Is the name change essentially political, an assertion of Chinese nationalism? Then why is still Pékin in French and Pekín in French? The Economist's Johnson Blog (named after the great dictionary pioneer) confidently put forward a theory last year - only to quickly withdraw it after protests from commentators. I personally go with the idea Peking is the Cantonese form of the word.  This is what I was told when I lived in (Cantonese speaking) Hong Kong and seems to make sense. Anyway, Kung Hei Fat Choi (a Happy (Cantonese!) New Year