Talk:Wu Ting-fang

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Untitled[edit]

He's mentioned in official Hong Kong Government sources as Ng Choy. I would say the English name he actually used was Ng Choy. Wu Tingfang is merely a Mandarin-based transcription of his Chinese name that he might not have used during his life. — Insta ntnood 04:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wu Tingfang is the name used on the 1914 English-language book he wrote, according to this library catalog entry - no mention there of any other name on the volume. CDC (talk) 22:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

... the Gutenberg Project text of which is linked from the article, of course... forgot about that. I don't claim to be an expert on the man, but I think it's clear that this was the name he used when writing in English. CDC (talk) 22:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite likely he would have used Wu Tingfang himself when he wrote. In his time Pinyin was not yet invented. Library catalogues recently tend to Pinyin to sort names of Chinese people, and many publishers use Pinyin when they re-publish their works. — Insta ntnood 22:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's really very simple. He was born and raised Cantonese and spent most of his life in Hong Kong (Cantonese speaking), so his name is Ng Choy. In 1883, he took a major leap across the border where he will have had to use and been known by a Mandarin (Putonghua) name, hence Wu Tingfang. Whether he actually wrote it in English script rather than Chinese characters is neither here nor there; the point is that in his latter (and most illustrious, some way may say) life, he will have been known as "Wu Tingfang", not "Ng Choy". Ng and Wu are the same family name when written in Chinese, just pronounced in the fashion of two different Chinese dialects. Sirlanz 14:19, 30 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sirlanz (talk • contribs)

@Instantnood: @Sirlanz:, I believe this topic needs to be revisited. The main concern when naming Wikipedia articles (including China-related articles) is what the predominant common usage is. The Google ngram shows that the Pinyin spelling (Wu Tingfang) has clearly outstripped Wu Ting-fang in usage, which is confirmed by a look at recent scholarly sources ([1] [2] [3] [4]) and, as mentioned by @Cdc:, most recent republications of his works. I think the article needs to be moved to Wu Tingfang to be consistent with Wikipedia policy. SilverStar54 (talk) 23:32, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Early life?[edit]

This article, while interesting as far as it goes, only begins with his (western) university education. Is there any information about his family or early life? Or even an explanation of why we don't have that? Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 11:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've added significantly to this aspect. Hope readers find it useful. Sirlanz 14:13, 30 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sirlanz (talk • contribs)

Death[edit]

Something is wrong in ths section. "He died a few days later on 23 June 1922 from pneumonia." - a few days after the event happened during midwinter cannot be 23 June. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.98.183.140 (talk) 10:11, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wu Tingfang definitely died from pneumonia but there is contradictory information about how this came about. I removed that source which says he died during midwinter. That source came from Wu Lien-teh and he was obviously mistaken. Another source [5] gives a different series of events, see page 351. Because of the contradictions I believe we should just cite he died from pneumonia and not give specific detail. Psychologist Guy (talk) 20:10, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Did not study at UCL[edit]

The student lists for 1874–5 to 1876–7 can be found in the calendars for 1875–6 to 1877–8 that are available in the UCL Special Collections website. He is not to be found in there. He is also not present in the list of graduates of the University of London up to 1922, available from the Senate House Library archives website. There is also no mention of UCL in the biography by Linda Pomerantz-Zhang, Wu Tingfang (1842-1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese History. It seems fairly conclusive that he did not study at UCL, so I have removed this from the article. Robminchin (talk) 05:01, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good find. The only source I could find that claimed he attended the University of London was a 2018 book "China Through American Eyes" by Wenxian Zhang page 41 which lists no sources. This source has then been copied to other blogs. It was obviously a mistake. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:59, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]