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The poster makes three claims: 1. The search was spelled wrong. True, although the Western media often spells Tiananmen, Tian'anmen is more correct in untoned
by asolove 17y ago
The poster makes three claims:
1. The search was spelled wrong. True, although the Western media often spells Tiananmen, Tian'anmen is more correct in untoned official pinyin.
2. People in China would not link to "Tiananmen" in reference to the twenty-year-old historical incident as often as to the place, which is the site of many contemporary events. In 1989, the same year, San Francisco experienced a very strong earthquake that killed and injured thousands. Yet a search for San Francisco on Google returns only one reference to this in the two two pages. Is that censorship? Or is it that San Francisco has been in the news since then and is more commonly linked to for the thousand of events that have happened since?
3. The connection between the protest and the "Tian'anmen" name is stronger in English than in Chinese. True. For example, if you go to the English Wikipedia page for Tiananmen incident, and click on the Chinese version of the page, you'll notice it's called 六四事件 "The event of June Fourth." The name "Tian'anmen" is not associated with the violence and the protest in Chinese, whereas it is the only reason the word is ever printed in media outside the country.
- starkfist 17y agoYour second point is the wrong comparison. Searching for "San Francisco" is not equivalent to searching for "Tiananmen 1989." If you search for "San Francisco 1989" the Loma Prieta earthquake is indeed the dominant result.
- jesuschrist 17y agoSince point two has already been debunked enough, (though there's plenty of room for more), I would not that Tian'anmen is "correct in untone official pinyin" that of course is used by almost no one, inside or outside of china. As for your third point, since you can read chines you know that there is extensive information on the page talking about other commonly used names, many of which include the Tiananmen phrase. In fact, the first section of the chinese article goes into a fair bit of detail about that. Furthermore, seeing as wikipedia is hardly democratic, or used under "free conditions in China", I see no reason to use it as the baseline for determining what is common, or the common usage of certain terms, especially a term that connotes an event that the majority (or a substantial percentage) of chinese people under say, age 30, have never heard of. As for the "needlessly sarcastic", when did the internet become a place where sarcasm eternally brought about the wrath of other commenters? Is the problem the "needless" sarcasm, as opposed to the sarcasm in general? Doesn't personality mean anything? And if it's the "needless" part, let's be honest, is hackernews really "needed" at all?