-----Original Message----- From: Anthony Fok [mailto:anthony@thizlinux.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 5:19 PM To: Paul Eggert Cc: mgy1912@home.com; tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov; yaoz@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:

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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.

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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@thizlinux.com> http://www.thizlinux.com/ Debian Chinese Project <foka@debian.org> http://www.debian.org/intl/zh/ Come visit Our Lady of Victory Camp! http://www.olvc.ab.ca/