From Peking to Beijing

In Beijing, travelers would enjoy the local Peking duck, and TsingtaoBeer from Qingdao city.  Some people will visit friends who’s studying in one of the best universities in China—Peking University.  It sounds really odd to have different names for cities, how the names evolved?

In the 16th century, European traders and missionaries landed in a coastal city named Xiameng–once called Amoy. The local people were speaking Min nan (south of Fu Jian Province)  dialect in which the capital of the great empire was pronounced very similar to Peking, hence the capital was named. And more likely the name was romanized by the French missionaries.

In the east Asian countries, to name the capital after its basic status was a tradition, such as Beijing which means North capital; Nanjing, South capital;

Japan’s Tokyo, east capital, old name of the capital of South Korea, Gyeongseong, simply means the capital, now it’s called Seoul.

How to Romanize Chinese pronounciation, especially on the postal maps?

Sir T. Wade and H. A. Giles

Two great Sinologists, Sir Thomas Francis Wade(1818-1895), a British ambassador in China and Herbert Allen Giles(1845-1935), a British diplomat(1867-1892) to China successively started a system to spell Mandarin Chinese known today as the Wade-Giles Romanization.

Prior to 1958, the Chinese government used the Wade-Giles system to transliterate Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet. After 1958, the People’s Republic of China switched to the pinyin system of transliteration so now we call the capital city Beijing (pinyin) instead of Peking (Wade-Giles).

Actually, pinyin system is based on the standard Mandarin which is official across whole China. When you are in China, and ask Chinese about Beijing, everybody understands! If you say “Peking”, most people would be confused!

For some famous old trademarks which enjoys great reputation abroad, we still use their old  Wade-Giles names!