Re: Taipei Times 12/7/09
Chou calls on KMT to focus on 2010 polls
Ko Shu-ling
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/a ... 2003460364

One day after mayor and county commissioner elections, attention turned yesterday to next year's special municipality elections, with Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei urging the Chinese Nationalist Party to begin the nomination process and Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen remaining mum on whether she would stand for election.

The five municipalities holding elections next December are Taipei City, Taipei County - which will be upgraded and renamed Sinbei City - and a merged Taichung County and City, Tainan County and City, and Kaohsiung County and City.

Chou, who early last month said he would run for the top job of Sinbei City, said yesterday the KMT should begin preparing for primaries as soon as possible, preferably after the Lunar New Year.

sinbei city


Aside from all the external influences wanting eventual big changes to the long-standing, local political landscape, wouldn't a decision changing the P in "Taipei" into a B to make it "Taibei" represent enough of a sea-change by historical standards?

I know ... I know, 'Sin' here only means 'Chinese', not ... 'act of evil.'

So, I guess this means ... from now on ... let's all root for 'Chinese Sinbei' at the Olympics, etc. No big deal.

Still ... somehow, changing the name of Taipei [even as an adminstrative district] to "Sinbei City" seems radically harsh to me. [Besides, the place doesn't even have a casino.]

that other 'sin city'

Of course what the Taipei Times won't tell you is that it will be romanized as "Xinbei" not "Sinbei" (the TT still clings to Tongyong, a dying romanization). Nothing to do with China, mallard - the "Sin" is for "new" as in New North City. Still, 新北市 is an exceedingly stupid name for the new conurbation.

Really? I would assume the 'sin' to be Tongyong for xin1 新, 'new'.

Edit: oops, Taffy beat me to it.

You know that in the word Xinbei, the X is a stand in for that rude word Fuck.

Excellent choice: Fuckin'north.

But Taipei is still going to be Taipei, isn't it? I hope, I hope, I hope...

Don't let it go the way of Bombay and Rangoon...

AFAIK, Xinbei city will be the new name for Taipei County. Correct me if I am wrong, but Taibei city remains unchanged.

That post doesn't make much sense...anyway it could very well change it's name to Xinbei in the medium term as that would more properly reflect the metro area.

Well, unlike Bombay and Rangoon, Taipei is a national capital.... for now...

Doesn't Taipei County still use Tongyong as its official pinyin system?

Nope. The central government has mandated Hanyu Pinyin, and independently of that decision Taipei County Magistrate Chou Hsi-wei actually found a moment between photo opportunities and palling around with gangsters to declare the switch to HP too. The change is underway in Banqiao and other areas of the county.