Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China

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GA reassessment of Dixie Mission

I have conducted a reassessment of this article and found several unreferenced statements which need addressing. Details at Talk:Dixie Mission/GA1. The reassessment is on hold for seven days after which it may be delisted if it does not meet the GA criteria. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:51, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Character reading request

What is the reading of 中国通用航空公司 (China General Aviation)? WhisperToMe (talk) 02:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Marco Polo

 Chzz  ►  21:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages request

I am making a request that User:Mr.Z-man's tool track the daily hits received by articles under our project's purview. Hopefully, this will allow us to see what is most important to our readers, and by extension, what most desperately needs improvement. The info should appear at Wikipedia:WikiProject China/Popular pages once data collection begins.--Danaman5 (talk) 23:14, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Can you also add WPHongKong and WPMacau? I looked at it and seemed like it is limited to B class articles or better? Benjwong (talk) 02:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

It looks like it tracks pages regardless of their assessment class. See for example the WikiProject Croatia list. I think it just asks about the B-class category in order to find all of the categories for the project. I will add requests for the two WikiProjects you mentioned as soon as possible, but right now it looks like the toolserver is down or something, because I can't get through.--Danaman5 (talk) 04:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Du Fu FAR

I have nominated Du Fu for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 14:39, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Good article review of PRC

People's Republic of China has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Tom B (talk) 00:39, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Userbox created for China travel

In a similar vein to the {{User States visited}} or {{User:Reywas92/Userboxes/Provinces Visited}} templates which show how many American states or Canadian provinces that Wikipedia editors have visited, {{User Chinese province-level regions visited}} has been created for those people wishing to show on their user pages how many of the 33 province-level regions they have visited. Entering {{User Chinese province-level regions visited|9}} gives the following result:

This user has visited 9 of the 34 province-level regions of China.9

Thanks, — Kralizec! (talk) 14:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

What is the reading?

For Su-shin, how would one read the "神" character in 四神 Four gods? I know how the four is read, but I don't know how the gods character is read. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

It is read "Shén".--Danaman5 (talk) 04:39, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Marco Polo sheep

 Chzz  ►  03:09, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Court of Colonial Affairs vs. Lifan yuan

One of the articles is probably redundant. Maybe someone with some more expertise in Qing-era administration could look into this. Yaan (talk) 11:50, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Merged. Colipon+(T) 03:18, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Featured article review: Yuan (surname)

I have nominated Yuan (surname) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Noisalt (talk) 01:23, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Languages

Would like some help with setting a solid article name of languages like Wenzhou dialect and Teochew. Would like to adhere to WP:COMMONNAME. Colipon+(T) 03:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Request assistance

You can help with a source dispute, by taking a look at this article in Chinese, and then checking to see whether the translated material in this English article is accurately translated. Please add your comments to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#China Youth On Line. Thanks in advance for your help. --Coleacanth (talk) 21:04, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject TRANSWIKI

You are all invited to join WikiProject TRANSWIKI and join the Chinese language transwiki project. The aim is to draw up a full directory of missing articles from Chinese wikipedia and build a team of translators to work at bridging the gaps in knowledge and to improve existing articles by translation. We need your help, so if there are any Chinese speakers here please join up as your language skills are crucial. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:46, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Colours on Chinese geographical templates

I don't know which user keeps insisting on changing the templates to reflect the colour of the Chinese flag. See:

I have mentioned repeatedly that it does not fit the content of the page and looks horrible aesthetically, nor is there really any other precedent with other geographical templates. I would like to propose that all Chinese geographical templates retain the default colours. Colipon+(T) 01:31, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

What is the reading?

The father of Sadaharu Oh is Shifuku Oh (王 仕福), who was Chinese - What is the Chinese reading of Shifuku Oh's given name? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 21:00, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

It is probably Wáng Shìfú. The last character might be "fù" instead, but there is no way of knowing how he pronounced his name without hearing him or someone who knew him pronounce it.--Danaman5 (talk) 02:59, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

"Outer Manchuria"

Is this a term from Chinese? In English, it only exists since 2005 or so, at least according to google books. Before 2005, there are only a handful of books that contain the term, and some of them simply seem to refer to the northern parts of what is now Dongbei, i.e. areas that are still part of China. Others seem entirely fictional. None of the excerpts available on google books is sufficient to place Outer Manchuria north of the Amur/Ussuri rivers. The situation on google scholar is just the same.

If this term comes from the Chinese, this should be mentioned in the article, otherwise I guess the article should be up for deletion or merging with Manchuria or North-East China. Yaan (talk) 15:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merge of PRC into China

A user has proposed the merger of People's Republic of China into China. --Cybercobra (talk) 13:32, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Three Gorges Dam

Three Gorges Dam has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Tom B (talk) 13:57, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Mao Amin

Hello! I created the above article and request someone who can translate Chinese articles to help with adding information on her singles, awards, etc. Thanks! Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 00:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

East Asian calligraphy

Hello, there is a contest against totally undiscussed cut-and-paste blanking/merging/splitting of East Asian calligraphy by Asoer (talk · contribs). I don't see any active discussion on the edit, so there is naturally no consensus for that. Since it is pertinent to at least "four WikiProject", I'm drawing your attention to the article and hope you would give some useful input on the matter on Talk:East Asian calligraphy. Any active members who are interests in East Asian culture/art would be greatly helpful for the issue. Thanks.--Caspian blue 03:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_China#What_to_call_East_Asian_calligraphy. Asoer (talk) 04:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

What to call East Asian calligraphy

It was proposed that the article be renamed "Chinese calligraphy." However, there is opposition to this.

The proponents of renaming it "Chinese calligraphy" argue that because the article is mostly about the study of writing Chinese characters, it should be named to reflect that.

The proponents of keeping it "East Asian calligraphy" argue that, as opposed to "East Asian calligraphy," "Chinese calligraphy" excludes calligraphy that is specific to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In order to account for each region's respective calligraphies, separate articles, e.g. Japanese calligraphy, Korean calligraphy, and Vietnamese calligraphy have to be created. Another problem is that, as opposed to "East Asian calligraphy," it excludes calligraphy in other writing systems and glyphs such as kana and hangul. One may need other articles such as Kana calligraphy and Hangul calligraphy to account for calligraphy in those writing systems.

My take is that the "Chinese" in "Chinese calligraphy" can refer either to calligraphy in China or calligraphy in Chinese characters. If "Chinese calligraphy" refers to calligraphy in China, then it excludes calligraphy Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. However, calligraphy Japan, Korea, and Vietnam has strong ties to calligraphy in China, and one must account for that. If "Chinese calligraphy" refers to calligraphy in Chinese characters, then it does not matter where it is practiced, and therefore includes Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. However, it does not differentiate certain aspects that are native to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Also kana and hangul would not be accounted for.

I find that "Chinese calligraphy" should refer to both calligraphy in China and calligraphy in Chinese characters. Scripts and other aspects that are specific to other regions should be accounted for in their own articles.

Therefore, I propose that there be the following articles:

• East Asian calligraphy being a about calligraphy in East Asia, but not as detailed as the main articles to which it links, being Chinese calligraphy, Japanese calligraphy, Korean calligraphy, and Vietnamese calligraphy.
• Chinese calligraphy, being about calligraphy in Chinese characters, calligraphy in the Chinese writing system, and calligraphy in China.
• Japanese calligraphy, being about calligraphy in the Japanese writing system (including kana), which produces works in the Japanese language, calligraphy in Japan, and calligraphy in Chinese characters if it is specific to Japan.
• Korean calligraphy, being about calligraphy in the Korean writing system, calligraphy in Korea, and calligraphy in Chinese characters if it is specific to Korea.
• Vietnamese calligraphy, being about calligraphy in Vietnam, and calligraphy in Chinese characters if it is specific to Vietnam.

Please discuss.Asoer (talk) 04:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I have to say this, but let let us keep this on topic. Talk about me goes in User_talk:Asoer. Asoer (talk) 07:58, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd say splitting it would be a good idea since it just doesn't seem right to bundle 3 different languages into one general article, but definitely don't do the sloppy copy and paste job again. Might need a bit of rewriting in order to properly differentiate the articles too. GraYoshi2x►^talk 15:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I think this discussion should be held on its talk page for more accessibility. I'm more against the cut-and-past splitting which erases the whole history of contribution.---Caspian blue 20:47, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm quite confused about what has happened here. The splitting, copying, pasting etc. that people are talking about is hard to figure out from looking the history of the article.

At any rate, the current article on East Asian calligraphy is a crappy, fragmented article. The article on Japanese calligraphy is also a rather choppy article. I'm not sure what the status quo ante was, and it would be nice to know before I venture too many judgements.

As for GraYoshi's point that "it just doesn't seem right to bundle 3 different languages into one general article", I find it difficult to agree. They are different languages, but they share a common script in Chinese characters and their spinoffs. Calligraphy is about writing, not about language. When Chinese write 木 and Japanese write 木, the fact that one is read mù and the other is read ki is irrelevant from the calligraphic point of view. To cut Japanese adrift from the Chinese writing tradition, to which it is intimately and organically tied, on the grounds that it is a "different language" is missing the point. All of these peoples recognise that they form part of the same tradition.

Bathrobe (talk) 14:47, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Bathrobe. Between separate articles repeating mostly the same information and one general article, I'd pick the one general article. However, one can still account for differences among different regions in the one article, at least until the information makes the article too long. But I don't think there is quite enough information right now for separate articles. There's just that anomalous Japanese calligraphy article which appears to be mostly about the history of calligraphy in Japan. Perhaps if the current article Japanese calligraphy was renamed to History of calligraphy in Japan or something, and an article Japanese calligraphy was created to redirect to East Asian calligraphy, that would make more sense.

I know I suggested separate articles on August 21 2009, but I describe the articles about Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese calligraphy to be only about differences from Chinese calligraphy, and this is in a situation where all of the information about East Asian calligraphy gets too long.

As for what happened, There exists an article Chinese calligraphy with its own edit history. Its contents were cut and pasted to East Asian calligraphy. I, not knowing how to move the article back while preserving the history, moved the contents back to Chinese calligraphy. Then, Caspian blue reverted my edits. Asoer (talk) 20:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm starting to see things a bit more clearly. This issue is one of those intractable problems associated with the break-up of the Sinosphere (Chinese cultural zone). You will find similar problems with things like Oriental dragons, sumi-e, Buddhism, Chinese characters, Confucian temples, and just about anything else that basically emanated from China to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The primary problem is the quite simple one of deciding whether to cover the topic in individual articles for each country, which shows the special characteristics in each country but can easily miss the overall picture, or one central unified article, which runs the risk of glossing over the situation in each individual country and giving too much emphasis to China. A secondary problem is that of competing nationalisms. For better or for worse, Japan has in many ways developed what it borrowed from China in unique and interesting ways, and moreover, the Japanese aspect is often better known overseas than the Chinese original, which leads to a tug-of-war over which should take precedence. Korea is usually a less distinct branch than Japan, but Koreans understandably feel that their experience should not be slighted. Lip service is also paid to Vietnam, but articles on the Vietnamese aspect are generally lacking, largely because there is less material available, and also because Vietnam has deliberately moved away from identifying with China (by jettisoning Chinese characters, for instance).

Similar problems can also be found in Western Europe, actually. For instance, there is an article on Cathedrals, but there are also articles on Cathedral architecture of Western Europe, Architecture of the medieval cathedrals of England, and lists of cathedrals for individual countries (England, France, etc.). Another is Romanticism, with a main article on Romanticism itself, and for some reason one separate article on German Romanticism. Thus, it seems to me that a central article on the main topic (Calligraphy) is essential, but where there is sufficient information or enough distinctive features for a separate article, such an article should exist (such as "Japanese calligraphy").

Because the tradition usually started with China and emanated to the other countries, the next problem is what to call it. The term "Oriental" would be a very good one, but nowadays people don't like to use "Oriental", and moreover it's inherently imprecise (Turkey, Iran, and India can all be included in "the Orient", depending on your standpoint). "Chinese" isn't very good because using this term implicitly excludes Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. That leaves expressions like "East Asian", which is also less than satisfactory because it usually excludes Vietnam (geographically now considered a part of "South East Asia").

To look at the situation in the West, the big difference between East and West is that there can be an article with a simple name like "Cathedrals" that can cover European countries as well as North and South America, etc. This avoids tedious conflicts over whether the article should be named "European Cathedrals" or "Western Cathedrals" -- essentially the kind of problem that we get when we discuss words like "Chinese", "Oriental", "East Asian", etc.

Another problem that is probably tangential to the whole question is the place of Mongolian. I don't know enough about Mongolian calligraphy, but if you look at the samples conjured up by a Google search of "Mongolian calligraphy", you'll find calligraphy that is distinctly "brush and ink" and looks very similar to Chinese calligraphy. Arguably Mongolian calligraphy should also be included in "East Asian calligraphy". But since the Mongolians don't use Chinese characters, their calligraphy won't share many of the common features of Chinese/Japanese/Korean calligraphy, including the names of styles, etc. As I said, perhaps rather tangential, but it seems that we need to look at the whole picture in making any kind of decision.

I realise I haven't advanced the discussion much, but I hope that editors are at least aware of similar naming issues elsewhere.

Bathrobe (talk) 01:17, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I can't find anything in the Wikipedia:Naming_conventions regarding topics about the Sinosphere. One can't satisfy all the naming conventions, so one has to compromise on some of them. Given that there be one article about the study of writing Han characters (as opposed to other Chinese characters like Nü Shu), the most accurate name I can think of is "Hanography." However "Hanography" gets only 131 results on Google. "Sinography" would be troublesome because it refers to radiography of a sinus following the injection of a radiopaque medium. Less accurate but more widely used is "Writing Chinese characters," getting 2,840,000 results on Google but the vast majority of them not purposefully referring to 書法. Less accurate names use "calligraphy" (usually defined as "the art of writing") such as "Chinese calligraphy," "Japanese calligraphy," "Korean calligraphy," and "Vietnamese calligraphy." These names' respective results are 757,000; 152,000; 39,100; 8,520. However, a look at "Korean calligraphy" on Google Images usually shows images of Hangul and "Vietnamese calligraphy" usually shows images of Latin characters. Also less accurate is a name that refers to a region, like "Oriental calligraphy" (74,900 results) and "East Asian calligraphy" (693,000 results, a lot of them probably the result of the article East Asian calligraphy). As Bathrobe said "Oriental" and "East Asian" exclude and include certain regions that use Han characters.

In the end, if one wants to side with accuracy while sacrificing widespread usage, I would choose "Hanography" and "Writing Chinese characters." If one wants widespread usage while sacrificing accuracy, I would use "Chinese calligraphy." I really can't recommend names that refer to regions like "Oriental calligraphy" and "East Asian calligraphy" as they are just too inaccurate.

Asoer (talk) 05:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I just thought of another possibility. That is, using romanized Sinospheric terms. "Shufa" gets 1,480,000 results. "Shodo" gets 401,000. "Seoye" gets 21,000. "Thu phap" gets 607,000. Again, however, the images of "Thu phap" are in Latin characters. Asoer (talk) 05:23, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

There is one major objection to many of the above terms: they are not common English terminology. "Sinography", "Hanography", etc. would be, if adopted, "Wikipedianisms", not normal English usage. I think virtually all these new-fangled terms can be ruled out.

Bathrobe (talk) 13:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Suzhou

As mentioned at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#Suzhou, recent edits to this page and various redirects pointing to it appear confusing. Perhaps someone from this project who is familiar with Chinese place-names could sort out the mess? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I've followed a Db-move to take the article from Suzhow, Jiangsu back to Suzhou, Jiangsu, but there's still the question of whether the article should just be at Suzhou, the setup that seems to be assumed by Suzhou (disambiguation). Dekimasuよ! 05:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Could an administrator please move it back to Suzhou, as it's the only one. Thanks.--James.w38 (talk) 05:26, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to doing that out of hand, but there's also Suzhou, Anhui, which has a listed population of 5.5 million. Dekimasuよ! 08:02, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Chinese classifier FAC

Chinese classifier is up for FAC again, at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chinese classifier/archive2. If anyone has interest in th is topic, comments are welcome. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:13, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject China to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject China/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 01:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Need help on a picture

I am currently looking for a picture of Prince Tuan, a figure from the Boxer rebellion. I have found this photo and this one, but I am unsure that they represent the same person (the second one was probably taken way after the Boxer rebellion, IF it is him). Also, which one of the persons on the first photo is supposed to be Prince Tuan ? Is it the seated man ? None of this photos remotely look like this wax figure : not that it means anything, but Ronglu's figure does look like the real guy so I assumed at first that the figures at the George Stuart museum were based on actual photos. If anyone knows what Tuan actually looked like, I'd appreciate the help. Thanks. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 13:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

HELP

I have authored a series of articles on Chinese literature and art. These works were filled with unsightly tags and basically defaced by a hostile editor (enterfermero) in conjuction with another indiviual (jcrin). Both of these people are Mormons who are hostile to me for opposing their Mormon sanctified historical ideas. I want the tags removed. They hinder the reder and are unsightly.--Iwanafish (talk) 17:20, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

How about a little more details? It sounds like you have a personal despite with whomever you are edit-warring with. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 20:09, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Unequal Treaties

Unequal Treaties is up for rename and a relate page is to be deleted. See Talk:Unequal_Treaties#Requested_move

76.66.200.21 (talk) 03:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)