I emailed my niece who lives in Taipei, asking her about this subject.
She informed me that President Ma said for those who do not grow up in
Taiwan or CBT (china born Taiwanese) can try to read in traditional Chinese
and write in simplified. She told me the press mispresented what he said
and seems to do this quite a bit. I noticed that their press was very
polarized during my visit, more so than the press in America, so I suppose
the NY Times didn't check the source thoroughly. This is a bit different
than Taiwan making the switch to simplified.
However, I like the transition to PinYIn on the street signs....when I saw
zhōng 中 transliterated as "chung" on a building, I found it rather unusual.
shanshanchua wrote:lan_dawei wrote:When my family was in Taipei last year, I was pleasantly
surprised to see street signs in HanYu PinYin. It made it
easier for me to get handle on things. I wonder if that took
place when Ma Ying-jeou was mayor of Taipei.
I dont' know if it was Ma Ying-jeou's doing, but it certainly makes sense now that cross-straits relations are better and the number of Chinese tourists to Taiwan have increased.
But if Taiwan were to switch to Hanyu Pinyin some day, it would take a while getting used to Taipei --> Taibei, or Kaoshiung --> Gaoxiong.
Then again, Beijing used to be Peking, Guangdong was Canton...(and Mumbai was Bombay, Yangon was Rangoon etc etc..)
