Taiwan Today

Things may not be always as they seem, a truism borne out in the case of the word for Taiwan. This has been a topic for argument through the centuries but even now no one is certain of origin or meaning

The Chinese are fond of names and of treating them metaphorically. At New Year's time, eggs be­come "silver ingots," mushrooms are "op­portunities" and chicken is known as "phoenix." Until very recently it was not unusual for a Chinese to be called by half a dozen different names during the course of his life-milk name, pet name, school name, name for the family records, pen name, literary name and, for the distinguished, an honorary appella­tion.

Renaming of places is common among the Chi­nese, who used at least a dozen different names for Taiwan before they finally settled on the present one in the 17th century. Confusion is inevitable when one name follows another in quick succession. The Chi­nese are uncertain about the meanings and origins of many Taiwan place names, including the word "Tai­wan" itself.

Place names are adopted for a specific reason but the name persists after the reason has been for­gotten. This has often happened in Taiwan, which has known the flags of Dutch, Spanish and Japanese in addition to those of the Chinese Empire and the Republic of China. When the island was "discovered" by the West in the 16th century, Portuguese sailors named it Formosa, meaning "beautiful." For an unknown number of centuries before the arrival of Chinese settlers, the island had been inhabited by Polynesian tribesmen using dozens of different tongues. Their descendants number about 150,000 in nine tribes. Most of the old languages have vanished.

In keeping with such a history, many Taiwan place names are of aboriginal, Dutch, Spanish or Jap­anese origin even though they look and sound Chi­nese. Origins and meanings are often hard to trace. The word "Taiwan" is an example.

R.H. Mathew's Chinese-English Dictionary lists 34 characters in the section "wan." Six of these are pronounced in the upper even tone - the first of four tonal variations in Mandarin, the official spoken lan­guage of China. Of the six, the most commonly used means "to bend" or, as an adjective, "bent" or "curved." Addition of the water radical to this char­acter produces the "wan" for "Taiwan," also in the first tone. Because of the water element, this noun form "wan" means "bay" or "cove" and in rare cases may also be used for curving shores or river bends.

"Tai," or "t'ai" with the aspiration mark to be more exact, stands for a lookout, tower, terrace, plat­form or stage.

What, then, does "tai-wan" suggest? One interpretation is "a bent dais rising from the water" but this is not quite logical. Because the Chinese always put the adjective before the noun to be modified, a bent dais has to be "wan-tai" instead of "tai-wan." Besides, the adjective "wan" could not include the water radical.

If "Taiwan" suggests "terrace and bay," one is inevitably left to wonder where the bay is. The island may be compared to a platform or terrace, but "the 770-mile (1,240-kilometer) coastline is simple. There are inlets and river mouths but nothing big enough to be called a bay. Between the island and the Chinese mainland is the 100-mile-wide Tai­wan Straits. It is not likely that even people of limited geographic knowledge could have mistaken the straits for a bay and started calling the island "Taiwan" - a platform rising from a bay.

Many scholars have attempted to straighten out the confusion about the meaning of "Taiwan." The Tai Wan Chi Lueh (Brief Record of Taiwan), the oldest surviving first-hand account of the island, describes Taiwan as "a lone curved island in the midst of the ocean to the east of the mainland." The book was written by Lin Chien-kuan of Taiwan Fu-hsueh (Academy) in 1685, two years after the Ch'ings (Manchus) seized the island from Cheng Keh-shuao. Cheng was the grandson of Cheng Cheng-kung, who in 1661 drove the Dutch from Taiwan and started building the island into a base for mainland counterattack and the resurrection of Ming rule.

A book about China's provinces written in 1684, just a year before Lin Chien-kuan's interpretation, said the island was named "Taiwan" by a Chinese pirate named Yen Shih-chi. He was said to have started to use Taiwan as his base late in the reign of Ming Emperor Shen-tsung (1573-1619).

But there is little doubt that the name "Taiwan" had come into existence much earlier, as evidenced by the appearance in historical records of at least three different sets of characters that are pronounced similarly. The three are:

- "Ta-yuan" (pronounced "T'ai-oan" in the Amoy dialect of Fukien province directly opposite the island), meaning "big grievance."

- "T'ai-yuan" (also "Tai-oan" in Amoy, but with a different tone for "oan"), meaning "terrace" and "outer border."

-"Ta-wan" (similarly "T'ai-oan" in Amoy with still another tonal variation for "oan"), meaning "big bay" or "big bend."

The "big grievance" version supposedly appeared in the Han Shu (Han Book or Record of the Han Dynasty) but extant copies of the book do not show such a name. Most students view Han (206 B.C.­-AD. 221) dating as rather far-fetched and prefer to think that the island's name cannot be older than the Ming days of the 15th and 16th centuries, a time which saw the beginning of sizable Chinese emigration across tile straits from Fukien.

The fact that the sounds remained almost un­changed despite written variation suggest this explanation: That the different versions are phonetic trans­criptions of an alien word and the Chinese characters for "Taiwan," including those which are current, were adopted more or less haphazardly without much consideration for meaning.

One such theory is advanced in the Japanese­ language Taiwan Chimei Kenkyu (Research on Tai­wan Place Names) by Akiyoshi Abe of the now de­funct Aboriginal Languages Research Institute of Taihoku and published in 1937. Abe wrote that the name "Taiwan" came from the words "taian" and "tayoan" which natives in the present Tainan area used in refer­ring to early Chinese settlers.

Tainan is in the south of Taiwan and close to the Penghu (Pescadores) islands, which served as stepping stones for early emigrants from the Chinese mainland. It is possible that the earliest Amoy-speaking pioneers arriving on the island from Fukien called the natives "pairan" - "bad people." The natives, know­ing or not knowing the meaning of the expression, reciprocated by referring to the Chinese as "pairan." This word and such variations as "pairangan" and "pairan" are still used by the Paiwan and Ami aborigine tribes.

Abe advances the thesis that the "taian" and "tayoan" versions of the Syraiya tribesmen in the Tainan area were overheard by later Chinese arrivals and adopted as a place name for the Tainan area, if not for the whole island.

The Dutch took the Penghus in 1621 and landed at Tainan three years later. When they built Fort Zeelandia (Sea Land) at what is now Anping, the place was an islet separated from the Tainan of the big island. The Chinese supposedly named the fort "Taiwan," using the characters for "platform" and "bay" because of the topography. The Dutch used the name and put it down in their records variously as "Tayovan," "Taoan," "Tayouan," "Tayoan" and "Taiwan."

When Fort Providentia was built by the Dutch in Tainan in 1652 or some time thereafter, the Chi­nese named it "Tsia-kam-Iau," a combination of the tribal village name (spelled "Chaccam," "Saccam," "Scakam," "Sakam," "Sacam," "Saccam" and "Zaccam" by the Dutch) and the Chinese word for "castle" or "pavilion." The meaning of the tribal word has long been lost but the two Chinese characters adopted for "Tsiakam," pronounced "chili-kan" in Mandarin, mean "red cliff" or "red bank." The fort stood at the edge of the sea inside Tainan Bay. Writers and his­torians of later days claimed the fort was near a stretch of red bank.

Cheng Cheng-kung seized the fort in 1661 and made it his headquarters for further military opera­tions against the Manchus. After Cheng's death, his son converted the place into a powder magazine in 1664. The fort was destroyed in the earthquake of 1862. Reconstruction work in 1875 produced a com­bination school, library and temple. Except for some of the stone paving in the courtyard, no part of the present-day Chihkan Tower is from Fort Providentia.

"Anping," now the name of the site of Fort Zee­landia and meaning "peace and tranquility," is said to have been given by Cheng Cheng-kung, who also used "Tung-tu" ("eastern capital") or "Tung-Ding" ("eastern calmess") as a substitute for "Taiwan." In Amoy pronunciation, "t'ai-oan" can mean "bury completely." The Manchus who took the island from Cheng's grandson refused to honor the Ming patriot's nomenclature and declared "Taiwan" the island's offi­cial name.

In any event, "Taiwan" is a latter day name among the Chinese. Awareness of the island's existence goes back at least to the Chou dynasty (1122-221 B.C.). In the chapter known as "Yu-kung" in the Book of History (or Canons of Yao and Shun, the two sage emperors of ancient China) written during the Chou dynasty, the island is vaguely referred to as "land of Yangchow." "Yangchow," meaning "land or island of willows," apparently was the name for the whole of South China, from which the barbarians were beginning to send tributes north. The book says tributes included stringed shells, olive oil and zinc.

The Shan Hai Ching (Scripture of Mountains and Seas), believed to have been written in the Warring States period (403-221 B.C.), mentions several re­gions to the south of what is probably the Canton River of today. One of the names, apparently applied to Taiwan, is "Tiao T'i Kuo" or "Country of Tat­toos on Foreheads." Inhabitants are described as "shark people" with scale-like tattoos on faces and bodies.

The first seemingly reliable description of Taiwan appears in the 120-volume Han Shu, a history of the Western Han dynasty (206 B.C.-8 AD.). The pas­sage reads: "It is wet to the south of the river (Yang­tze) and most people do not live long. Off the coast of K'uai-chi (Chekiang, to the south of Shanghai) live the Tung-ti (east sheatfish) people in more than 20 tribal groups who have started coming for seasonal greetings and payment of tributes. On the islands off La-Ian (Korea) live small people who are divided into more than a hundred groups." The "small people" obviously were the Japanese. "Tung-ti people" were inhabitants of either the Ryukyu islands or Taiwan.

The Shih Chi (Historical Records) of Ssu-ma Chien about a century before Christ mentioned an attempt to explore Yingchow, which later was identi­fied as Taiwan. "Yingchow" means "ocean island" and often has been translated as "island of fairies." Poets down the centuries have referred to Taiwan as "Tung-ying" ("land of the eastern ocean") but this was never been adopted as an official name. Japan has been similarly referred to by men of letters.

In the period of the Three Kingdoms (221-280 A.D.), Taiwan was known to the Chinese as "Yi­-chow" ("island of barbarians"). The San Kuo Chih (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) records that the Kingdom of Wu with its capital in what is now Che-kiang province sent a 10,000-man expeditionary force to explore Yi-chow and Tan-chow in 230 AD. and that, although the latter was too far to reach, "sev­eral thousand natives were captured and brought back from Yi-chow." "Tan-chow" apparently referred to Hainan island off the coast of extreme south China.

Later historical records show that the Ryukyus, Taiwan and the Penghu islands were collectively call­ed "Liu Chiu," which in Chinese is identical to the name of the present-day Ryukyus. The characters used at first meant "flow" and "beseech." The water radical of the "liu" was later changed to the king radical and the character "chiu" also acquired the king radical, making the present combination mean "pre­cious stone balls" while retaining the same sound.

It is obvious that the Ryukyus were not so named because of their resemblance to floating stones or balls. The Chinese almost always transcribe foreign proper nouns phonetically without consideration for meanings. The four Chinese characters "ya-mei-li-chia" used as phonetic equivalents for "America" mean "secondary-beauty-profit-add." In like manner, "Canada" is "add­-take-big," "Mexico" is "ink-west-brother" and "Greece" is "rare-wax." The characters for "Ryukyu" were adopted because of the phonetic closeness to a native word whose origin and meaning were lost long ago.

The practice of calling the Ryukyus, Taiwan and the Penghus "Liu Chiu" ended in the year 1372 when the founders of Ming dynasty sent an emissary to Okinawa and conferred upon its chieftain the title of "Liu Chiu King," making him a hereditary vassal of the Chinese empire. The annexation move was intended to cut off Japanese pirates in the East China Sea from their home bases. For some time thereafter, the name "Liu Chiu" was limited to Okinawa and the adjacent group of islands, while the name "Little Lin Chiu" was given to Taiwan, which actually is far larger than all the islands of the Okinawa group put together. This belittling of a larger island was prob­ably due to Taiwan's lesser development at the time.

Even today, an islet off Taiwan's southwest coast is called "Hsiao Liu Chiu" or "Little Ryukyu." The Hengchun area near the southern tip of Taiwan used to be known to Amoy-speaking islanders as "Ron Kiao" after the name of an aboriginal tribe that lived there. The similarity between "Ron Kiao" and "Liu Kiu" (the Amoy version of "Liu Chiu") led to belief that "Liu Chiu" was the name of Taiwan and nearby islands and came from the name of a limited locality.

Then, too, Taiwan was once called "Chilung Shan" ("Kelan Soa" in Amoy) after the name of a mountain ("shan" in Mandarin) at what is now Keelung, the island's northern gateway. Tribesmen who lived in northern Taiwan before the coming of the Chinese called themselves "plains people" or "Ketagalan." Amoy-speaking settlers later shortened this word to "Kelan" and phonetically transcribed the abbreviated version with two characters meaning "chicken cage." The name was relayed to the mainland and writers of the Ming Shih (History of the Ming Dy­asty) put down "Chicken Cage Mountain" as the name of Taiwan.

After Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895 at the end of the first Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese thought "chicken cage" wasn't sufficiently refined for an important port city and adopted two other char­acters pronounced similarly in both Amoy and Mandarin but meaning "foundation eminent." "Keelung," the Japanese phonetic version, is still used in most English texts and maps. But to the Chinese the port city is either Chilung in Mandarin of Kelan in Amoy.

Taiwan was called "Peikang" ("Pakkan" in Arnoy) in the 17th century. This originated from "paken," the Ketagalan tribal word for "north." "Pei" or "pak'" also means "north" to the Chinese and "kang" is a port. A Dutch report written in 1629 refers to the main island of Taiwan as "Po'kan," obviously a phonetic variation of "Pakkan."

As indicated before, the Dutch built Fort Zeelandia on an islet off what now is Tainan city. It was natural that the mooring place for the Chinese and the natives across the water and to the north was named "Po'kan" or "Pakkan" - "northern port." As was the case with "Taiwan," which was originally a local name, "Pakkan" (or "Peikang" to Mandarin­-speaking people) eventually was taken to be the name of the whole island. For sailors and immigrants stop­ping over at Penghu, the destination was Pakkan, regardless of whether the name meant a port or the whole island.

Under the Manchus, the island became official­ly known as "Taiwan." Nevertheless, the name "Pakkan" has remained in use for a central Taiwan town which is now famous for the island's largest and most popular temple of the Goddess of the Sea. Peikang is about 30 miles from the mouth of the Peikang River. Junks from the Chinese mainland used to unload passengers and goods there. That was before silting de­stroyed the port's usefulness. But the temple, ded­icated to the guardian angel of seafarers, continues to thrive. On the 23rd day of each third moon, hundreds of thousands of people flock to Peikang to mark the birthday of the Goddess of the Sea.

Residents of Peikang often use the term "Small Taiwan" in referring to their town. This is understandable, because the name was once that of the whole island.

Knowing that "pei" means "north," one doesn't have to guess where Taipei is on Taiwan. Similarly, the locations of Taichung, Tainan and Taitung are ob­vious to those who know that "chung," "nan" and "tung" mean "center," "south" and "east," respective­ly. The western link is supplied by Taihsi on the west coast, midway between Taichung and Tainan. But this is a small place, unknown even to most is­landers.

Hsinchu, a city about two hours' drive southwest of Taipei, has towns of Chupei, Chutung and Chunan to north, east and south. There is no Chusi because the city is near the coast and has no room for a satellite town to the west. "Hsinchu" means "new bamboo.' The place was called "Tekcham," after a tribal name, before the present name was adopted by Manchu rulers in 1876.

Taipei used to be known by another name­ - "Toa-ka-la-po" in Amoy pronunciation and derived from "tagalan" of the tribal name "Ketagalan." "Po" means "plain" in the Amoy dialect.

Other place names of aboriginal origin in and around Taipei include:

- "Banka," meaning "canoe." The site of Taipei was swamp and forest land only two centuries ago. As trade sprang up between aborigines and Chinese settlers, one riverside trading post became known as Banka. The Japanese later gave this oldest Taipei market area a phonetic version of two characters read as "Manka" and meaning "ten thousand flowers." The same two characters are still in use now but pronounced "Wanhua" in Mandarin.

- "Paktao," meaning "witch." The characters adopted by Amoy-speaking settlers for "Paktao" are read "Hokuto" in Japanese and "Peitou" in Mandarin. Taiwan's first hot springs hotel was built here in 1896, barely a year after Japanese occupation of the island. The thriving hot springs town is now a part of Greater Taipei.

- "Wulai," meaning "hot spring." To the people of Taipei, this is the nearest (17 miles) aborigine village. The two characters adopted by the Chinese for "Wulai" mean "crow comes" and are pronounced almost the same in both Mandarin and Amoy.

- Shihlin, where the National Palace Museum now stands, was called "Pattsiran" by aborigines. The Chinese attached three characters meaning "eight irises and orchids" and suggesting "plenty of friendship" for the area. Later the word "forest" was added to make it a four-letter place name. Both the meaning and the sounds were taken into consideration when this was shortened into "Shihlin"-"forest of scholars."

Shihpai ("Stone Tablet"), between Shihlin and Peitou, is now the site of the Veterans' General Hospital. Until a few years after World War II, the place was "Kirigan," a name given by the Spanish in the 17th century. The nearby Tamsui River was "Kimazon" to the Spanish who occupied the north of Taiwan for about 20 years before the Dutch drove them out in 1642. "Kirigan" appears to be the combina­tion of the river name and "irdgar," the Spanish word for "irrigation." The "ki" prefix was probably prompted by the name of the tribe, Kitagalan, in north­ern Taiwan.

Other Taiwan place names with interesting deriva­tions include:

- "Lotung," the name of a lumber processing town in northeastern Taiwan, means "ape" to abori­gines. Some people say there was once a big tree there that provided a home for countless monkeys. Others say there was an ape-shaped big stone. No one seems to know exactly where tree or stone was located,

- Ilan, the seat of the Ilan hsien (county) gov­ernment and near Lotung, was called "Cabaran" after the name of the tribe there. The Spanish called this northeastern coastal area "Santa Catalina." The pres­ent Chinese name, meaning "suitable orchid," retains the last syllable of "Cabaran."

- Suao to the southeast of Dan was developed by a group of Chinese settlers headed by Su Shih-wei about 150 years ago. "Ao" means "bay." The Spanish called the place "San Lorenzo" but the Chinese named it after their pioneer leader.

- Kaohsiung, the island's southwestern port city, was the home of Takao tribesmen. Arnoy-speaking Chinese settlers adopted two different sets of phonetic equivalents for "Takao," one meaning "beating drum" and another "beating dog." The latter version was in use until 1920, when the Japanese adopted still another set of two characters, also read "Takao" in Japanese but meaning "tall and strong." The Japanese version, still in use today, reads "Ko-hion" in Amoy and "Kaohsiung" in Mandarin.

Most Taiwan place names are undisputably of Chinese origin. But touches of the Amoy and Hakka dialects have made many names confusing to people who do not speak the dialects. In the last 20 years or so, the Chinese government has changed many place names in Taiwan to make them more easily understandable to literate Chinese:

Early Chinese settlers in Taiwan included these groups:

- Hoklos from Fukien province speaking the Amoy dialect. Their descendants make up about three­-quarters of Taiwan's Chinese stock.

- Hakkas from farther north in China. They resettled in eastern Kwangtung province just to the south of Fukien and then moved to Taiwan, to ex­treme south China and to Hainan Island. About one of every five persons in Taiwan is a Hakka. The word "Hakka" means "guest families."

- Cantonese, largely merchants, who settled in the south where the earliest Chinese development began.

Place names adopted, notably by the first two groups, were based on topographical features, flowers, plants, constructions, legends, historical events, etc. A sampling of meanings presents a picture of what early settlers thought of their new home and of what they were doing:

1. Locations and topography:

- Hilly lands: Mountain Top, Mountain Foot, North Mountain, Back Mountain, Plateau Top, Cliff Top, Cliff Foot, Sand Hill, Two Hills, Big Hill and Big Valley.

- Flat lands: Flat Field, Big Field, Inside Field, Outer Field, Field Heart, Back Field, Eastern Bound­ary, Northern Boundary and Old Eastern Boundary.

- Forest lands: Grove of Trees, Forest Mouth, Forest Edge, Square Forest, Bamboo Grove, Big Plain Forest, Plain Forest End and Bamboo Foot.

Places near water: River Land, River End, North of River, East of River, Ditch Head, Pond Bank, Har­bor Bank, Sea Mouth, Sea Tail, Bay Bottom, Lake Mouth, Eastern Port, Western Port, Water, Boiling Water and New Pond.

2. Specific topographical shapes:

- Mountains: Phoenix Mountain, Falling Moun­tain, Stone Gate, Half Screen Mountain, Tortoise Mountain, Drum Mountain, Sharp Mountain, Flat-Top Mountain, Red Mountain, Round Mountain, Jade Mountain, Fire Mountain, Snow Mountain and Heaven-Piercing Mountain.

- Rivers: Fresh-Water River, Double-Deck Brook, Pour-Ditch Brook, Twin Rivers, Muddy-Water River, Salt-Water River, Forking River, Bitter River (because of the ragged terrain that makes traveling a bitter experience) and Deer Ear Gate (because of the shape of rocks in the river).

- Islands: Tortoise Mountain Isle, Chicken Heart Isle, Flower Vase Isle, Incense Burner Isle and Saddle Isle.

3. Plants and animals:

- Trees, flowers and fruits: Banyan Foot, Maple Forest, Maple Tree Lake, Paulownia, Thatch Grove, Ivy Lake, Banana Valley, Longan Grove, Mango Lord, Guava Plain, Pineapple House, Orange Orchard, Zelkova Hill, Big Sago Palm, Pumpkin Field, Camphor Plain, Peach Garden and Hemp Farm.

- Living creatures: Frog Pond, Carp Lake, Duck Hut, Deer Ground, Boar Valley, Bird Isle and Oyster Port.

- Minerals: Salt Field, Upper Salt Field and Sulphur Hill.

4. Man-made objects:

- Houses: Wooden Huts, Farm Huts, Oyster Huts, Potato Market, Brick Field, Stone Kiln, Lime Place, Blacksmith Street, Oil Press and Public Mansion.

- Defense facilities (against aborigines): Mud Castle, Mud Ox (so named because of the shape of embankment), Stone Walls, Wooden Fence, Red Line (because of a brick wall), Stone Tablet (as a border mark), First Fence, Second Fence and Third Fence.

- Temples: Many towns and villages are known by the names of their temples.

5. Legends and historical events:

- Places that had to do with Cheng Cheng-kung and his followers: Five Army Camp, Right Camp, Old Camp, New Camp, Big Camp, Advance Post, Rear Post and General's Camp.

- Places named after pioneer settlers: Hill of Chu Houses, Wu's House, Chiang's Shop and Huts of Lins.

- Places with a Dutch background: Red Hair Mansion, Red Hair Pond, Black Ghosts' Field and Black Ghosts' Well. Black ghosts apparently were the colored slaves used by the Dutch colonizers.

6. Modes of settlement:

- Farm size: One "chia" ("ka" in Amoy pronunciation) is nearly one hectare. Early Taiwan place names included One Chia, Two Chia and 2.9 Chiao "Four" is always avoided because the word in Chinese sounds like that for "death." Bigger numbers used with "chia" included 12, 13, 52 and 100. The number "13" is not an unlucky one to the Chinese.

- Farm implements: Early settlers received free plows from local administrative offices at the rate of one for each five hectares of farm. The number of plows made available to a certain locality could be­come the name of that place. Two sections of Tai­wan still are known as "Three Plows" and "Six Plows."

- Order of development: First Knot, Second Knot, 16th Knot and 39th Knot. "Knot" or "kiet" in Amoy denoted a settlement group as well as an ap­plication for settlement. "New" and "old" were often put before such words as "street," "village," "town," "form," "rise," "castle" and "camp" to distinguish one place from another.

- Points of contacts with aborigines: Place names containing either "fan" (meaning "foreign" or "bar­barous") or "she" ("sia" in Amoy and meaning "vil­lage" or "hamlet") belonged to this group. Examples included Fan's Farm, Fan's Road, Fan's Pond, Water Village and Outer Village.

- Number of houses and other examples: Three Houses, Five Huts, Rice Yard, Public Field (for pasturing purposes), Cattle Field, Drug Net Hut, Canal Bank, Fish Pond, Water Gate, Five Shares and 16 Portions.

7. Places namd after mainland points: Chao­chou (Land of Tide), Tungshih (Eastern Stone), Chuanchou (Land of Fountain) and Haifeng (Sea Prosperity). Words for "house," "shop," "village" and "hill" were often added to mainland place names.

8. Names with cultural touches: Hengchun (Eternal Spring), Weihsin (Renovation), Jenteh (Benevolent Virtue), Wenhsien (Literary Sage), Yungning (Long-Lasting Peace), Hsinchang (New Prosperous) and Yungkang (Forever Health).

What's in a name? One of the days the Chinese of Taiwan will return to the mainland and liberate their compatriots there. The government will move back to Nanking-pronounced "Nan-ching" in Man­darin and meaning "southern capital." Peking will be Peiping once again all over the world. The name "Peking" ("northern capital") was changed to "Pei­ping" ("northern peace") in 1928 following Chiang Kai-shek's Northward Expedition which defeated the warlords and unified the nation. The Chinese Communists changed the name back to "Peking" but it will be "Peiping" again when peace is restored to China.