Oftentimes our use of language becomes so habitual that we do not question its innate meanings. The term “China” for most Chinese has little relations to the original Chinese name. For the most part, Chinese people refer to China as “Zhongguo” or the Middle Kingdom, and likewise the Chinese are called “Zhongguoren” (People of the Middle Kingdom). The point of contention arises from the western label of Zhongguo as “China”, a term almost universally used today. For some nationalistic Chinese, this term represent both foreign arrogance and ignorance, but for others it is just pointless argument over semantics.
From Sina:
Over half a century ago, the word “中国” (China) meant poverty and disorder, which prove to be a headache both within and without; Today, China is experiencing the peaceful rise towards a great power, and is the focus of world attention. Especially in the light of the economic crisis, all the world’s eyes are looking at China, even to the extent of hoping China would lend a hand to help them. The two word “中国” (China) frequently appears in all forms of media. But looking back, why is “中国” translated as “China” in English? After some deliberations, I’m still quite unsure about it. Looking up in the Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary of current English with Chinese translation and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the two dictionaries with the most authority internationally, I hope of finding an answer. Flipping through the pages, hope became disappointment. These two dictionaries only contain “china” with the little “c”, defined as porcelain or porcelain ware, but no big “C” “China”! These are the capitalized “Chinese”, meaning Chinese people and Chinese language.
Hereto, the problem arises. Clearly the major dictionaries does not contain “China” (notice the capital “C”), yet whenever events relating to China appears on Western sources, the word “China” appears. Could it be that the [dictionary] authors are writing nonsense or that the editors left out the word “China” on purpose? Exactly when and by who was the word “china” defined as porcelain, and when did “中国” defined as China?
Emperor Qin Shi Huang united China in 221BCE. Before this time, rival lords fought for power in a constant state of war, a very small area can be considered a state, and State of Qi, Chu, Yan, etc are all examples. Confucius’ travels in Shandong are called the “journey around the states”, a proof of this diversity of states. Evidently, due to the lack of a unified state, there was also no united name for the nation. Within the Book of Rites, contained the two words “中国”. After Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified China, why did he abandon the name “中国” and instead used “秦” (Qin) as the name of the state, this require further research.
After Emperor Qin Shi Huang united China, he resolutely got rid of the old and promoted the new, creating a powerful Qin state, his domain rival that of the Romans, his name is known far and wide. Even foreigners used the term “Qin”, “秦” sound like “chin”, and by Western customs the letter “a” was added creating china, the “c” is capitalized forming “China”, hidden within it the epitome of the Qin State.
From another perspective, China since the Shang and Zhou Dynasties (1766BC to 221BC) already possess glazed ceramic ware, both delicate and beautiful. Through land or sea routes these goods reached Europe, and were well received by the local people. Ceramic ware was therefore named “china”; the place that manufactures chinaware was in turn also called “China” by the people. These two explanation are purely the opinion of the author [of this article], and awaits conformation from scholars.
Apparently, the term “China” is what the foreigners call us. China in the past was also named based on the dynasties such as “Qing”, “Yuan” and “Ming”, etc. In reality, foreigners’ naming of parts of china came out of their custom or ignorance. For example, “台湾” (Taiwan) was called by the Portuguese “Formosa, “澳门” (Aomen) was in turn called “Macau”, “广州” (Guangzhou) was called “Canton”, “，厦门” (Xiamen) called “Amoy”, etc.
What foreigners call us shouldn’t be what we accept, let us all change. Chinese places should use the local names, this is a simple reason. We must also use Chinese customs to sinicize foreign place names, such as “旧金山” (literally Old Gold Mountain or San Francisco), “加州” (California), etc; using it among the Chinese people, not necessarily as official names.
Therefore, “中国” is “中国”, we have the right to do away with the foreign name of “China”, and change it to the pinyin form of “Zhongguo”, “中国人”or Chinese people now called “Zhongguoes”, while “中华” (greater China) now called “Zhonghua”, this way it will have the proper namesake, and we do not have to follow the foreign name of “China”. Overall, we have 1.3 billion people, some 700 to 800 million do not understand the name foreigners’ call us, and don’t you think this is a serious problem? From this day on, I advocate the abandonment of the English name for “中国”.
Comments from Sina:
竹林祥子:
Support LZ
w463616113:
LZ is crazy, should take your medications.
pkl863:
Silly, what is the point???
hzb537wj:
Did LZ ate too much and have nothing to do?
It is been called [China] for thousands of years, what is the point of changing it? Does it fit?
What is the point?
cucocd:
A nation’s dignity does not depend on the changing or names. Changing the name cannot exchange for a nation’s status, and would not receive the respect of other nations, why copy the Koreans and mess with trivial things like changing names.
It is like a person, even if given the name President or Marshal, he can only lead a vain life, with no one looking up to him. But if this man accomplished great feats in his life, even if people name him “bastard”, this “bastard” will still be respected by people.
v9590:
Why don’t you change America’s Chinese name into “ah3 mai4 rui4 ke1″ or “you3 ai4 shi3 ai1″.
“中国” no matter how poor or rich will be called “中国”, the People’s Republic of china!
赤子之心123:
Firmly support LZ’s suggestion. China’s meaning is porcelain, but originally it means Shina (derogatory term used by the Japanese), Shina in European minds meant inferiority, hence China are considered an inferior race.
Strongly support LZ’s suggestions!!!
ybwwf:
I think the name China is not bad, really, why change it; stop messing around with your own people! According to you should it be called Huaxia?
安国大将军:
Then call “中国” “ZhangHua Empire”, is that good?!
All the other countries are called provinces, like England Province, America Province, India Province, Japanese Province…
In the world only we are a “nation”, everyone else “provinces”!
I think this way LZ would be very happy!
Should really call LZ emperor.
Comments on Tianya:
精急慰姬:
Isn’t it called Tianchao (Heavenly Kingdom)?
Whoilold:
The first thing I thought about was Seoul [which changed its name from Hanseong].
Weird, how can one elevate himself to be along side of Korean Bangzi?
铅皮盒子:
Why English people can call “中国” China, but Japanese can’t call “中国” Shina?
希乐的天空:
It should be called Shenzhou.
supurPK:
I don’t support changing it. At the very least there is one reason: Z is last in the alphabet, C is third, and this way our representatives at international conventions will be placed at the beginning.
mmssthl:
The scholars are not changing the name, but loneliness.
zqa20000:
zhonghuaminguo
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Tell you what, when you can spell the name of any other country in the world (bar the few that have names in characters, like Taiwan lol), then you you get to moan about other languages having their own ways of referring to you. What a non-issue.
Since 1980, all the cities’ names was changed, I was surprised the name “China” wasn’t changed. Now is a good time.
“Since 1980, all the cities’ names was changed”.
That’s something (if not sarcastic) I haven’t heard about.
You’ve never heard of Peking vs Beijing etc?
What about ‘Peiping’?
what about pooping?
Wang Er, don’t worry, you’re probably too young to have heard about that.
It is named China after “Qin” as stated in the article. Not a matter or opinion but a fact. There is nothing about inferiority in the name. China porcelain is just short for “China-ware”. The term is now applied to more types of pottery than was originally intended. But so what? The writer though wants foreigners to call China “Zhongguo” but he wants to call San Francisco by it’s Chinese name? Anyway Chinese totally slaughters all foreign place and personal names being totally inflexible in transliteration. The Chinese have nothing to complain about on this count when foreigners decide to call them something different than they might like.
hmmm. russians and ex-soviet people call it Kitaj after Kitan Empire. ever language hs own thing. aside that chinese are giving chinese names everywhere without to ask local people.
he must’ve had his WOW account suspended and had nothing better to do
Or tired of solo raiding Sunwell.
More likely he just got his ass-kicked too much in WoW or was kicked from his clan for being a douche-bag.
Wow, what a problem. I demand that everbody say Российская Федерация instead of Russia and भारत गणराज्य instead of India and ประเทศไทย instead of Thailand. Oh no, wait, forget the last one. Thailand is Thailand. Maybe in 1000 years if Thailand is more powerful (like China) we can use the thai name for it, but not now.
I totally agree with Henning :)
Also, I want to change the name of my country to something catchy like, “Best Country on Earth” if we are going to start calling China “The Middle Kingdom”.
I forgort: can everybody stop saying Kazakhstan to Kazakhstan. It’s not Kazakhstan, it’s “the left one”, because its in the east of the beautiful middle of the earth (sorry, I mean heaven, not earth).
That has to be the dumbest idea a Fenqing has ever come up with (and they are generally pretty dumb.)
As an earlier correspondent pointed out, the Chinese people sinacise the names of our countries and cities, why can’t we anglocise theirs?
I can’t wait for MyLaowai to weigh in on this topic!
Yeah, if they want to call America “Mei Guo”, that’s fine with me…but I reserve the right to call their country “China”.
Yea China can’t tell others how to refer to it.
I could refer to China as “Shithole” if I so wanted, it’s not up to China. Not to mention “zhongguo” loses all meaning to foreigners, so what’s the point? Anglicizing the name approximates it’s semantic value in english.
If I named my child “Bob” in English, I do so because it’s a nice sounding english name and maybe if there was some meaning to the name I would choose Bob for that reason too. But if I wanted to give him a chinese name I would choose a name in chinese that had the same effect in chinese.
“Chinese places should use the local names, this is a simple reason. We must also use Chinese customs to sinicize foreign place names, such as “旧金山” (literally Old Gold Mountain or San Francisco), “加州” (California), etc;”
ROFL!! How about saying Chicago instead of 芝加哥? So the world has to learn how to pronounce things in 拼音 in order to shake off the reins by the those foreign devils. How about learning how to pronounce shit properly in English then you bunch of shitbird憤青, instead of using fucked up shitty ass transliterations.
The reason cities like Guangzhou were called Canton is because English speakers don’t have all of the sounds making up place names in Chinese within the English language. Is this so hard to understand?
going from “guangzhou” to “canton” is a pretty long way, they don’t even sound the same.
I would say english language people totally suck when pronouncing some foreign word.
I think regional dialects play a role too…
yeah, moron, ‘Guangzhou’ is putonghua, which they don’t speak too well in Canton.
But is ‘Canton’ that far off from how Cantonese people say Guangzhou?
Cantonese pronounce it more like “gwohn doong”, rather than “canton”.
That’s a really good phonetic rendering.
actually i thought it was from the French pronunciation of Guangdong. and pinyin is hardly phonetic.
I forgot to add my sarcasm tags
Early peoples were never bothered about proper phonetic rendering but attaching names that their language’s speakers can handle.
Same for Europeans, same for Asians.
I believe I heard that Canton is the transliteration of Guangdong. The French were the first people there, and in French Canton sounds similar enough to Guangdong. So this guy’s getting his panties in a twist about his own mistake.
I agree. Canton is Guangdong (a province) not Guangzhou (a city).
According the wikipedia, G in Pinyin are pronounced as unasspirated K, as in skill, and D as unaspirated t, as in stop.
Foreigners often makes the same mistake, pronouncing Pinyin as in English. Pronouncination in Pinyin loosely correspodents to pronouncination in number of European langugage.
Here’s link to wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin
I always thought the official name of china was 中华人民共和国 (The Peoples Republic of China) and that 中国 was just a short for it, by taking the first and last character of the word. Same goes with the Republic of China 中華民國…
but changing it now it will be pretty hard (if not useless), seen many foreigners still call Beijing Peking and Guangzhou Canton…
what about Mount Everest… it shouldn’t have gotten an foreign name in the first place!
The word 中国 appeared long before 中华人民共和国. Actually the latter was made up in such a way to contain 中 and 国 in correct order, in order to have the short name of 中国, in 1949. I believe it’s same for 中华民国. Names of all Republics after PRC and ROC should have same pattern.
About Mount Everest, the Chinese translation 珠穆朗玛 (or Zhumulangma) is more closed to the Tibetan ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ (Chomolungma or Qomolangma) than the English word Mount Everest in pronunciation.
So you think it should be known only by its Tibetan name or its Nepalese name?
Aahhhhhhhahahahahaha. I most like “For some nationalistic Chinese, this term represent both foreign arrogance and ignorance” arrogance and ignorance, like calling yourselves the middle of the earth? I think they had nouveau riche princes and princesses in mind well in advance, who was the Chinese Nostradamus who saw this one coming. Yes, All Chinese are the Middle of the Universe.. arrogance and ignorance indeed.
Wait, lets see, what’s China’s name for Africa? 非洲? what’s “非” exactly.. NOT? NON? Africa is a “non-continent”? hahaha.. getha fuck outta ‘ere with yer nonsense.
There is no “earth”.
“fei” means something else too.
非洲 is short for 阿非利加洲(Africus) which is a rarely used term in modern Chinese. And the 非 is only a mimetic char in pronunciation without the meaning of “not” or “non”, same as 亚洲 for 亚细亚洲, 欧洲 for 欧罗巴洲, 美洲 for 亚美利加洲.
Good job Wang….
Rick, next time do some research before posting, so you wouldn’t appear uneducated in Chinese matters.
I believe (but am not sure) that the short versions appeared before the longer versions, not after.
That’s why Germany is De Guo, not Duo or Dou Guo.
So it may be that A Fei Li Jia was a more modern rendering than Fei Zhou, in which case the arguments about using Fei Zhou stands.
As said, I’m not sure which came first.
德国 is short for 德意志联邦共和国 which is a translation of Deutschland (the Germany word not the English one). The short comes after the long one.
I’m tired of telling which country is what. Check a full list of all countries’ Chinese names by yourself.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E5%9C%B0%E7%90%86%E7%B4%A2%E5%BC%95
This reminds me of how the first Shah Pahlavi tricked the West into calling Persia “Iran” even though they’d been calling it Persia for over 2000 years. He did it because he was a Nazi lover and the Nazi ambassador had suggested that he insist on being called Iran because it had something to do with Aryans or something.
This idea is just as scary and retarded.
I speak better English than 99.99% of Koreans, actually I speak better English than most Americans and I definately understand the implications of language better than most of them. When a Westerner calls China the “Middle Kingdom” they are doing it to show how arrogant and childish you are, they do it to suggest that you think you’re the centre of the world when you are not. If you insist on being called Zhongguo it will weaken and humiliate your country so I very strongly recommend that you do this so the world can so the true face of China.
actualy “iran” was a name used by iranians themselfes.
Fuck me. When Pusan Playa’s post is more reasonable than OP’s translated original, I have to wonder who picked this story out of the garbage but forgot to mention this is a Philippines newspaper article?
—
This is the same ‘Playa’ who dropped precious gems like “One of the reasons I don’t like America is because they only nuked Japan twice…”
Koreans are retarded.
No, Koreans are not retards. They actually have the highest IQ average in the world. However just like any other ethicities, they have retards in their ranks.
LOL if you honestly believe that, then it speaks plenty about your intelligence
Most Koreans refer to Korea as Kankoku, as it was known during the Japanese occupation which is seen as the golden age of Korean history.
Some other still refer to it Showa, which is derived from Chinese meaning ‘Lesser Flower’, in reference to its suzerainty to Imperial China.
You retard shit munching goat thumping cock sucker.
Koreans do not refer to Korea as “Kankoku”. Fuck, ive never ever heard the word Kankoku in my life. You are a delusional inbred dirty and smelly Chinese who fabricates information just like the low IQ Chinese government.
Koreans call Korea- HanGuk. Koreans call South Korea- Dae Han MinGuk. Go fuck of Jjanke.
Whoa brother, calm down, we’re on the same side here. Let’s smooth things over by sitting down and eating some dog meat, maybe some sushi…I mean gimbap.
Yes, because Koreans never have to refer to their own country in another language. Koreans that make big names for themselves in other countries, like say, Japan (Yahoo Japan’s parent company is Korean-operated, then you have a quarter of the Japanese entertainment industry, etc).
How about getting rid of that ZHONG 中！ The old fashion way where they call themselves the center of the world and everywhere else are barbarians(aka Laowais).
You can change names of a country but there will always be a word to degrade or differ certain people. Chinese from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other nations call people from China, not Chinese, but Mainlanders! Go figure.
China – Leave it alone!
what a bunch of bullshit!
i call them,
nationality: chink-a-dink
official country name: nonglandia.
capital city: PeKKKing,
president: needledick.
wtf?
With your racism, it seems YOU are a member of the KKK, you troll.
Hahahhahaa!
If we call it middle kingdom people will expect to find hobbits and the likes.
They shall not be disappointed then.
for a few bucks you can.
As most foreigners here, I totally don’t see the point of reproaching us that we use “China” instead of “Zhongguo” when the Chinese language has come up with all funny kinds of transliteration for all those countries without characters, that’s to say all of them. And of course China cannot be found in an English dictionary, just as Germany or Turkey don’t appear there!
But I wanted to point on thing out which has often been misunderstood: the term Middle Kingdom does NOT refer to China being the centre of the world, but rather to its origin, i.e. the central provinces (Hunan etc.) along the Yellow River.
i dont get it. you call someone “forigner” in an american webside published in the world wide web? are you a little green alien?
This is a mental problem that Westerners develop after living in China for an extended period of time. They get so used to being considered a foreigner and an outsider, that it becomes part of their identity. Many Chinese in Western countries are still of the mindset that all the non-Chinese are foreigners or laowai even though they themselves are technically the foreigner.
You mean ‘technically’ as in ‘are’ – as I never hesitate to remind them when I hear them refer to locals in other countries as such.
You can be a white guy in your own hometown in Ohio and a visiting Chinese will call you “foreigner” to other Chinese. That never ceases to amaze me.
Also, I remember in college when some Chinese friends playfully called me “美国鬼子!” We all laughed and said, “你要什么，中国鬼子?” and they all stopped laughing, telling me in all seriousness, “You can’t say that. You can’t say Zhong guo guizi”.
Yeah, I’ve run into situations like that a few times.
“It was just a joke.”
“No. You can’t joke about that. It’s not a joke to us.”
I don’t give a shit about the XX鬼子 calling, except for the Japanese Empire army in WWII.
中国鬼子 is a nice one! There’s another one you can yell back next time when they call you 老外 (laowai), 老中. (even 老 something is mostly not offensive as in 老师, 老李, 老朋友).
lol. my friend was kicked out of Britain after he insulted the whole village that way (wich btw covered his illigaly existence and payed his salaries after he poped up there without money and winter clothes)
hmm forgot.
middle kingdom comes from in the “middle between yangtze and yellow rivers.”
I don’t claim to know the origin/intent behind the name “Middle Kingdom” so maybe mei mei is right.
However, most people (assuming she is correct) don’t know that and will probably never know that.
If your average Joe in any country around the world heard that China was changing it’s name to “Middle Kingdom” they’d probably make the smae assumption that most people make which is that China considers itself to be the center of the world…I’m not saying China does or doesn’t BUT that’s how a lot of people would interpret it.
It comes from the idea that China is the only beacon of civilization in the world. At the top is Heaven, middle is China, bottom is the rest of the world.
This is pathetic. Nothing more to say then that.
god. what a chame to be in a same race with this idiot..
–Emperor Qin Shi Huang united China in 221BCE.—
he conquered and installed own empire. there were no China in the world at that time.
—What foreigners call us shouldn’t be what we accept, let us all change. Chinese places should use the local names, this is a simple reason. We must also use Chinese customs to sinicize foreign place names, such as “旧金山” (literally Old Gold Mountain or San Francisco), “加州” (California), etc; using it among the Chinese people, not necessarily as official names.–
someone should ask what mongols, manchurians , tibetans and uighurts are thinking about. it will very funy to learn about.. not that the cinization of names of forign countries will start of decinization of their population. (something we have back in time when cowboys hunted chinese in America)
Buddha, please, give a fast dead to this brainless idiot and his family.
Some idiot has a lot of free time on his hand.
Why doesn’t he research why Bei Da decided to keep
the name “Peking University”?
Beijing is still referred to as Peking in many countries.
“Celestial Ones” was a term for Chinese immigrants used in the American Old West, British Columbia, and in Australia in the 19th century, derived from their status as subjects of the Son of Heaven (the Chinese Emperor). The term is no longer in common use and is rarely heard outside of the Western genre of film.
I love China, really. But the name “Zhongguo” is the epitome of hubris to anyone outside of China that knows the meaning of the word.
What the fuck is the deal with the Internet today? I swear to God, you Chinese are so fucking paranoid. Leave it alone, already. STOP FUCKING WITH THE NET !!!!
you should not come to this forum then, cause you will see more of these type of topics.
I’m confused. . . so whenever the laowai say/write/think the word “China” they are not simply referring to a country, but instead continuing a centuries old defamation of the peoples of the Middle Kingdom first perpetrated by the evil bourgeois imperialists of the decadent West?
To rid the peoples of the Middle Kingdom of the shame brought on by this great slur, you propose that China (my apologies for using this colonialist phrase) should change its’ name?
Again, confused. . . I thought it was “Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó” or Zhonggou, and China was used in international contexts or when not speaking in the common language.
So what is really meant is that everyone outside of China (damn, used it again) should use something other than “China” to refer to China (whoops, again, my bad!)
Still confused! What would be the point? Why is it so important? Does anyone, except some little boy trying to show how loyal he is to the motherland and gain some “brownie points” with the CCP, give a toss?
Finally, is the poster hinting that those who produce dictionaries are involved in some Machiavellian scheme to defame China (my bad, again!), or maybe they decided to leave “China” out of the dictionary because they are evil foreign China haters?
I might be wrong, not having looked at a dictionary recently, but i’m pretty sure if you look up England, France, Germany, Japan, etc you will not find them or any country’s name in the dictionary. English, French, German, Japanese yes, but not the name of the country.
… so why exactly is the poster offended by this? Did he at least check whether the names of those other countries were in the dictionary or was it simply easier to just assume it was some anti-Chinese plot?
At the end of the day, regardless of whether the Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó tells everyone to call it Zhongguo, Shenzhou, Tianchao, or Timbuktu. . . we evil laowai will still refer to the place as China and (as most if not all Chinese people I know)Chinese people will refer to it Zhongguo, unless they’re speaking to me, in which case they’ll say China.
… couldn’t find anything new to be offended by this week, so you dredge up some non-story bullshit to try to show how bloody hard-done by you are by the west.
. . . but just in case this gains traction and i walk outside my apartment to see copies of the Oxford English being burnt and “No More China” banners being waved (the irony of which no doubt being lost on everyone) could someone find out which evil western country is to blame. . . So i know which supermarket i won’t be able to enter unless i’m willing to brave the rent a mob showering me with ignorance and water bottles. Only, I shop at Tesco, so I hope it wasn’t the Brits! Can’t we just blame the French for this? Carrefour sucks anyway . .
Would these “No More China” banners contain a “Made in China” tag?
Actually it would be made in “Middle Kingdom”.
Well, whilst we’re at it, everybody should call the UK by it’s proper name – England is only part of our country fellas. However ‘The United Kingdom’ doesn’t sound cool enough, I vote we change our name to ‘Awesomestan’ and then make everyone else use it (except China, they can call us 牛国, because we’re totally bad-assed).
Hey FOARP, I think I seen you around the Paradox Forums, whats up LOL
Curses! My dual life as someone waiting for the next edition of the addiction-tastic HOI4 by day and an internet Fenwai by night has been uncovered for all to see!
Please tell me if the new HOI is any good . . . my lame-assed 2006-model laptop is too slow to run it :(
Honestly I’m not having as much fun with HOI3 than HOI2. KMT allied to the commies in ‘36? WTF blasphemy!
Could this be the face behind the mask? The real Pusan Playa when not out trolling?
Worst logic ever: “What foreigners call us shouldn’t be what we accept, let us all change. Chinese places should use the local names, this is a simple reason. We must also use Chinese customs to sinicize foreign place names”
The netizens use “China” just as often as “中国” because they have this misperception that English (if you could even appraise their misusage of it as such) is “cool.” Additionally, last time I checked the shortened version of United States of America, America, was written and pronounced “America,” not 美国， not Meiguo. More to the point, anyone who understands Chinese knows that the name just makes the Chinese seem like a bunch of guys with a Napolean Complex: the middle of the Earth is the core, there’s no country that sits in the “middle,” unless there’s a bunch of dwarves or something chilling below us in a bunch of caverns.
The name “China” came from the Qing dynasty and is used in many european langauges, not just English. If you want the foreigners to call your country the same way you call it – you might start using the term “Zhongguo” more often and you will at least make the rest of the world aware of that name, but that’s the most you could get I guess. People in different countries name other countries in different ways and you cannot stop them from doing that, what is “Sweden” for English-speaking world is “Sverige” for swedes for example. Turks don’t like that their country is associated with the bird – “Turkey”, so they try to use more often the original name “Türkiye” for example. You could start promoting the “Zhongguo” name too!
But you did managed to correct the term in English for “Beijing” instead of the previously used “Peking”, though it worked only for English and some other languages, it is still “Pekin” in French or “Пекин” in Russian. Same case with the Indian “Bombay” to “Mumbai”.
Actually the media has began using “The Middle Kingdom” term along with “China” quite often lately, but it will probably never replace it. In Russian, China is also quite often referred as “Поднебесная” (meaning “celestial” – 天下) instead of the usual “Китай” – the equivalent of the term “China”.
Wow, it’s exactly like imperialist Japan when they changed all foreign place names to match their new kanji pronunciation. Wonder if the Chinese know what path they’re going down.
We Chinese should rename Japan (Riben) too. It’s not 日本, it’s 倭.
Almost as short as your 鸡鸡 mate.
Why don’t we just assign each country a random number and be done with it? Math is the universal language right?
nobody wants to be number 2 …
How about the range of numbers start at 250. China can be 250.
hm, clarification: China can be the lowest number in the range, but only if that initial number is 250.
Japan can be elevens =)
Doesn’t that make Britain 1?
I believe he’s referring to the anime Code Geass where Japan was the 11th Colony of “Britannia” hence Area eleven and the people are derisively known as “Elevens”
Who cares about Arabic numerals?
China is number 一.
Who cares about Arabis numerals?
I dunno…the developed world?
The English word China, which were derived from name of the first Empire of China “Qin” established in 221BC, has a longer history than the word 中国(zhongguo) when it were first used to describe the Middle Kindle established by Han people in Han Dynasty 202BC.
I would say ignore the moron and keep using China. God knows how much it costs to replace all those Made in China labels with Made in Zhongguo ones.
BTW, people who vote for Tianchao must be native speakers or who are quite familiar with Chinese internet culture (and its subcultures) XD
maybe he should have looked at the proper nouns sections in the dictionary in order to find China…
and what a stupid idea
some people might call it megalomaniac to call a point on the surface of a spherical object the center of it.
some just might call it borderline retarded.
WOW! This is why I love this website. Though there are few foolish folks on here…this article was very helpful and taught me something I did not know about Chinese/Zhongguo people.
I have always wondered why Asian people would come to America and not use your birth name that was given to you. I hate that SHIT and I think as a person coming from another Country to any place in the world should not have to ‘die’ down your name to find acceptance.
I am not Zhongguo but I support calling Chinese…Zhongguo
China has been called China since news spread to the West of the Qin Empire. Qin added an -a at the end and q changed into Ch. Thus China was borne. You’re willing to sympathize with retard fenqing to change a respectable name recognized the world over since the time of the Romans, for the sake of what exactly?
These people must have had their WoW accounts expire on them.
Well, to be sure, the first recorded instance of “China” was in 1555. The Romans called China “Seres” for “Land of Silk” or “Sina”. According to wikipedia, the English word for “china” dishes and “China” the country were originally spelled differently and came from different Sanskrit words. The Sanskrit word that gave English “China” was “Ciñas” which, yes, is believed to have its origin in the Qin Dynasty.
All these posts are just too erudite for me. I would go for La La Land, given the drivel being pumped out about National Day by the media. Google search. Liberia/Guinea Bissau declare undying frienship with the Chinese people. Xinhua manages to cover every tinpot imploding state in the universe. Come on, lets be honest: most people are waiting for HJs arrival in his new custom built 19ft limo….Long Pink Cadilliac.
Its says that my comment is awaiting moderation, this new moderation thing is worrying and I want to see if I can get around it by making an account, this is a test.
Testing, testing
Yup, my suspicions are confirmed. From now on, I, PUSAN PLAYA, will be making posts under this account.
To me as a native English speaker “Middle Kingdom” sounds like a rather small antiquated place wedged in between other countries. As someone mentioned it also makes me think about Hobbits and stuff on “Middle Earth”. The United Kingdom sounds more important… Central Nation would sound rather different, however. What about this name “Hua” for China?
What a stupid idea. The guy that proposed this idea is obviously just caught up in the nationalistic fervor that is 10/1. What country and culture does not have transliterated English words as a result of Western imperialism? Is all foreign influence bad? If it’s so bad, why doesn’t China get rid of it’s western system of government?
I don’t support calling it ‘Zhongguo’ because this is pinyin and pinyin uses the Latin alphabet and that is foreign control of the language.
ASCII was a conspiracy by foreigners to make computing controlled by English. Now we have Unicode, just need left to change all coding languages into 简体中文 (not 繁体字, because that is unpatriotic).
You can’t translate it ‘Middle Kingdom’ either – ‘kingdom’ is a word left over from the evil legacy of European feudalism and bears no relation to the puissant 德 of the righteous rulers of the Dragon Throne; to say ‘middle’ would be to submit to the hegemony of false Western Cartesian space, so unlike the complex interdependency of Han relational cosmology.
I object to a translation of 中国 as “The Middle Kingdom.” It was never meant in that sense, but instead refers to the “Central States” in the Warring Dynasties period. The reason why Qin Shihuang changed the name after 221BC is because beforehand he was the lord of the Qin state, which in 221BC finished conquering all the other states.
Indeed, it is a (not so) frequently asked question by a few Chinese friends: “Why French people still say Pekin instead of Beijing, Canton instead of Guangzhou, Yangtse instead of Changjiang, etc.?” Well the answer is pretty simple, because we speak French and not Chinese… And pinyin is a form of Chinese language, not a universal alphabetic language for Westerners… Usually, I also add in answer to that question that if we should say Beijing (which is, by the way very difficult for French people to pronounce, since the pinyin is more or less based on the English pronunciation and not on French) instead of Pekin, why not saying Zhongguo instead of Chine (which is the French word for China)… Well, I will probably have to find another reason to not saying Beijing…
Fortunately, most of the answers by Chinese netizens to this post are pretty right and reasonnable…
(Well, as everybody know, French people are definitely arrogant bastards : they also say Angleterre instead of England, Londres instead of London and Italie instead of Italia!)
Wish everyone a Happy National Day !
People are still using Peking in China sometimes, such as in Peking University since PKU sounds cooler than BKU (if you know what PK means in Chinese).
Have a good day!
What I don’t understand is this: This writer wants to make a case that China is suffering unfavorable treatment by foreigners based on the fact that the foreign word for the country and the local word for the country are not identical. But what gives Chinese people the right to tell foreigners how to speak their own languages? Nobody is forcing Chinese people to call Zhongguo “China” when speaking Chinese. So why should Chinese people ask foreigners to call China “Zhongguo” in their own language?
One more note: Taiwan did not become a part of China until the 17th century and ceased being a part of China in 1895. During China’s flirtation with the island, the name Taiwan was given to the city that is now known as Tainan. The name was later extended to one prefecture and then extended to the rest of the island. The Portuguese and the Dutch had colonies in Taiwan before Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) took over the island after the fall of the Ming Empire and well before the Qing began colonizing the island. Taiwan was properly called Formosa before it was properly called Taiwan by the Chinese. By this standard, one has a right to tell Chinese people that THEY are incorrect in their terminology.
Turning to Canton. Guangdong IS CANTON. Xiamen IS AMOY. They are names that were created by foreigners who transcribed them based on how they sound in the local dialects. By taking exception to this fact, the writer is revealing his own ethnic bias. I am surprised he did not suggest that foreigners call Hong Kong “Xiang Gang”, which, by the way, would be almost unpronounceable with this spelling by many who use roman letters.
The point is that the writer’s little exercise in nationalist/ethnic symantics is pointless. Give the man a medal! He has discovered that speakers of different languages/dialects have different ways of referring to one concept.
Well Well. CH ina comes before CO rea (KO rea) and comes before JA pan. So you have it going your way. Be happy.
Well, if you’re going to have a bad idea you might as well go all the way!!
Ok can we all please agree this is non-story written by one bored young pioneer. Almost no country calls other countries’ place names the same, just ask an American to pronounce Edinburgh, and they speak the same language!
If i was to go to Sina and write ‘All foreigners are gay’, it would eventually arrive at Chinasmack. With everyone discussing whether all foreigners are in fact gay. I’m sure we would have Pusan Playa saying:
Yes everyone is gay (especially Chinese, Japanese and black people) apart from me because i have pussy everyday. Look at me! Pay attention to me! I have a small penis!
Kai maybe would comment:
I think maybe the poster is trying to say all foreigners are happy. If we look up gay in the dictionary we will find different meanings and it would be foolish to assume he meant homosexual. As we know
blah blah blah
visit my less successful website.
Sorry if i missed other notable posters. I don’t have all day.
LoL, despite the misrepresentation of how I would actually respond, that’s actually pretty damn funny.
That rocked, 250 !!
Canton pop might say:
Just like The Village People, Chinese, and I don’t like young men having no where to go.
Young man, there’s no need to feel down.
I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground.
I said, young man, ’cause you’re in a new town
There’s no need to be unhappy.
Young man, there’s a place you can go.
I said, young man, when you’re short on your dough.
You can stay there, and I’m sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time.
It’s fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
It’s fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
They have everything for you men to enjoy,
You can hang out with all the boys …
It’s fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
It’s fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
(i just read your Man vs wife post ;) )
Feel free to add your own ‘homage’ to your pick of the posters.
Personally i’d like to hear Pusan Playa’s version of the great yellow master race…but that’s just me.
250 out.
You can sum up my posts as just awesomeface.jpg.
they call themselves center of the world because for many centuries they had no clue about how the real map of the world was. To them, they were surrounded by desertic areas and sea so, totally ignorant about explorations etc., they believed that those were the borders of the world. Don’t forget that, few hundred years ago, when some white guy showed them their maps, they suddenly realized how small was China compared to the rest of the world, so got offended and left the room.
so what about Zheng He and his fleet that got all the way to East Africa?
South-East Asians settled in Madagascar around 200-500 A.D. It took the mighty Middle Kingdom another 1300 or so years to make it to east Africa. It took the European explorers even longer.
Didn’t the Arabs and Persians reach China by sea and settled here way back? When was that earliest date?
if east africa was one of the only lands I would have explored except my own, I would also believe that my own is the center of the world
Does anyone know why OED doesn’t list country names? The writer is correct about that, but he fails to note that Canada and France aren’t there either. Merriam-Webster lists China (People’s Republic of) and China (Republic of), so I’m wondering if there is an OED policy that I don’t know about…
Well most “proper” dictionaries don’t list Proper nouns such as place names. That the LZ couldn’t find “China” in the OED dictionary is not suprising. Merriam-Webster…well that speaks for itself…
Where do all you E-Thugs come from? Don’t you guys have work to do? Damn, there is some venomous shit spewed all over these comments. 中国or China, who gives a shit? This a non-story for lack of content.
Mmm.. smell that nationalism
We didn’t like it when Japan called us “Sina”, and I doubt anyone would want Beijing to be “North City” in other languages, so this shit is worthless.
Oh, and for the record: “Zhongguo” did not refer specifically to China as a whole until people started using it as a basis of comparison against other countries in the last few centuries. Prior to that, it was only a blanket term for China, and official records go by state/dynasty name.
Nationalism makes you dumb.
Never have I heard in all my 44 years the word “China”, by itself, being used as a term of opprobrium. Only by preceeding the word “China” with the word “Red” or “Communist” is the speaker referring to an aspect of post war China that represents poverty of intellect, uncivilized and inhumane behaviour. “China” by itself is a neutral word and ~everyone~ uses it in a neutral manner.
Tony.
So will the CCP become the Zhongguo communist party, ie. ZCP?
And I suppose Zhongguo is pronounced Zon-gee-oo…
Plain ridiculous. As other people have said if China wants its international name changed they also HAVE to refer to other countries, cities, places and people by their right name and not the retarded transliterations they go by now. Yesterday I watched Bayern-Juve and “Fan Libely” aparantly played pretty well. My native country is known as Red Wheat or something like that here while the not-so-beautiful country of the US is 美国.
Btw if you really want all foreigners to use Zhong Guo be prepared for it not to sound anything like they way you want it to. For a non-Chinese speaking Englishmanor (urgh) a yank it’s going to sound just plain weird. In my language it will be pronounced something like Songur and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. At least the name China has a fairly good ring to it these days.
“not-so-beautiful country of the US is 美国.”
I fucking crazy? America is an extremely beautiful country with high standards of cleanliness, breathtaking natural landscapes unscathed by pollution, a national highway system to connect it all, and nearly every climate zone on Earth. What are your grounds for calling America not-so-beautiful? You have obviously never truly experienced the natural beauty and diversity of these United States.
I don’t like Americans that much either man, but the country is good looking, you gotta hand it that much at least.
Even I would say that USA is good lookin country (in terms of sighseeing).
So calling this shit hole ‘China’ is arrogant….. but calling it the fucking MIDDLE KINGDOM is informed??
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
so…… the Chinese are inferior by defintion.
As I always said.
Sigh. As much as I love this website, it always manages to be a large downer. Feeling good? Well, go to Chinasmack’s comments and lose all hope for life and happiness.
I guess there isn’t much to say after 200+ comments, and I definitely don’t want to wade in regarding the meaning of the word “zhongguo”.
However, there’s a real issue regarding the use of written pinyin as a substitute for written Chinese: the fact that the word “zhongguo” itself is incorrect – it’s actually “zhong1guo2″.
This is my biggest pet peeve (well, I have a few). Written french has accents, as does german, so why not Chinese? Pinyin isn’t actually a language just by itself, but why not stick in the tones? Don’t hide it, show it! Standardized writing of tones will make it easier for foreigners to (hopefully) speak english. “Zhongguo” by itself isn’t very helpful; most English speakers, just reading that word by itself would likely say, “zzung-gu-wa”.
Okay, after that little bit of rationalism, the rest of you get back to endless bickering..
zhōngguó
Happy now?
If this site makes you so depressed stop coming to it. I have to say that you’re idea about adding in the tones isn’t bad, however you have to remember Chinese contains many 多音詞. Although in context people would understand the meaning of the word. Besides, including tones in pinyin would actually help native Chinese speakers improve their Mandarin skills, let alone foreigners. Good idea.
1)Weird. My Pocket Oxford Chinese dictionary certainly lists China – but if the OED doesn’t list it my guess is that it doesn’t include proper nouns – if they included ‘China’ they would have to include ‘Simon’ and so forth.
2) Pinyin was developed from the Soviet romanisation system (compare the ‘Zh’ in Zhukov to the ‘Zh’ in Zhongguo). As such it is a foreign-origin system.
Zh(Ж) in Zhukov is not the same as Zh(Џ) in Zhongguo.
Most countries have English names different from what the natives use, get over it.
The name China comes from the Qin Dynasty, a valid origin, and a decent option to “zhonguo” which shows China to be (rather naively and egotistically) central – zhong – to the world. That name and its history is no less flawed than the name China and a perfectly fine option for use by languages that do not use characters.
Once Mandarin is able to use the names other countries as THEY wish, correctly calling the United States something other than Meiguo or Great Britain something other than Ingguo, etc., then there may be some grounds to complain. Until then, this article is nothing more than jingoistic nationalism.
Using Zhongguo as the English name for China is akin to the Burmese junta calling their country Myanmar but the international community still refers it to Burma or Burmese for its citizens.
Ahhh… what about “Chinese”… so would people now be speaking “Zhongguo-ese” or do we have to start using the pinyin “Zhongwen”? And what about food, would it now be “Zhongguo-ese Cuisine” or “Zhongguocai”? This is funny.
People still try to use “BCE”? haha. It is B.C. and always will be. To hell with that P.C. crap!
I am sure the ‘Grape Teeth’ people will agree with this name change thing.
Call noam chomsky. It is the name of your country, don’t read too much into it…
What the F***??
I don’t consider my country is full of virtues either, then why do you Zhongguoren call it ‘DEGUO’ & so & so for the name of the other countries too.
guys…do what you want but Zhong Guo may sound like “Junk Guo” and some “bad” people may find it appropriate…ur call
this is not an issue. A lot of countries have completely different names in other languages: for instance, Egypt’s actual name in Arabic is “Masr”, but in most languages (including Chinese) it’s name is something like Egypt. At some point, you just have to accept the reality.
A cat by any name, Tom or Pussy or even Obama, is not good if it can’t catch mice. Deep within, as long as we are proud of ourselves and our civilization, be it Chinese, Zhong Guo ren or whatever, we know where we stand.