Talk:Ejiao

A note

ar jiao is not made from crushed garlic, nor is it used as glue. ar jiao is the solid condense from repeatedly boiled donkey skin. In Chinese Medicine, it is believe to have the effect of stablizing the fetus for pregnant women, replenshing the supply of blood, etc.

the use of ar jiao as adhersive for di mo is a convenient use of its properties of being adhersive, water soluble, non-expensive, non-toxic and relatively odorless.

Spelling of title

Proposal: move this article to standard spelling: Ajiao. Badagnani 21:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

• Strange: it looks like the convention on Chinese websites is "e-jiao." Badagnani 18:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Support Apparently "a jiao" and "e jiao" when spoken are both correct, but since the character used for the first syllable is "a" (used for sound only anyway) I think it would be better to use "a jiao" or "ajiao" for the article name, rather than "e jiao", with perhaps a note on pronunciation for those unfamiliar with pinyin. Also "e jiao" should be mentioned. LDHan 14:19, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Many Chinese characters have more than one pronouciation. 阿 is one of that. The word "Ejiao" came from the "jiao" (glue) from "Dong-e" 东阿 county in Liaocheng city. (pls check the content in that article). To pronounce it "a" or "ar" is simply wrong. To say "the first syllable is 'a'" is not correct. Well, why is the county called Dong-e, not Dong-a? That's the decision of people there. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%98%BF is wrong (I am not planning to contribute there currently though). Another proof is that the product, "ejiao", use this name. You can check that picture. BTW, I am a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese. --Mongol 03:57, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info and correction, I didn't realise that 阿 is also "e", my mistake, I had thought that ajiao was written with 阿 and ejiao written with a different "e" character, and didn't know both in fact used 阿. LDHan 18:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Misleading picture

The picture is the bamboo membrane used to set the chinese flute and not the glue substance. this is misleading and hence the picture should be remove from here. Perhaps we should have a "substitute section" to list the substances that can be use in place of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.12.202 (talk) 07:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Advertisement? etc.

The words about "Ms MA Yueling" are like an advertisement. She is making money NOW with her books and her books are not really considered as herbology ones. Donkey hide gelatin talks the same thing. I confirm the spelling "ejiao", not "ajiao". 冯唐已老 (talk) 14:18, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Merge with Donkey-hide gelatin

I thought it would be a rather straight-forward merge and went bold on it....I thought wrong. I was reverted, and this page was in turn redirected (not merged) to Donkey-hide gelatin. The two articles cover the same topic, only under two different names, one Chinese and one English (though "ejiao" does not literally mean donkey-hide gelatin, and in the face of WP:COMMONNAME I don't know if WP:USEENGLISH trumps it) I note that this page has been in existence far longer than Donkey-hide gelatin, and in the interest of preserving the edit history Donkey-hide gelatin should merge into this page before doing anything else. That said, I don't really have a strong opinion which should merge with which, but I'd like to facilitate some discussion.

If you don't have a strong opinion, then why are you disputing this? This is the English language Wikipedia and ejiao is a Chinese dialect not English. The ejiao article had no reliable source while the Donkey-hide gelatin was sourced to a respectable source published by the Oxford University Press. That source does not use the form ejiao at all. As there is no evidence to support that form, I shall revert. Warden (talk) 14:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Facilitate discussion, I said. Can you not wait for people to chime in? Does the article's long edit history not give you pause? _dk (talk) 14:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

In fact, a cursory search on Google Scholar does reveal significant usage of the term "ejiao" in English academic literature [1] (490 hits), over either "donkey-hide gelatin" [2] (148 hits) or the Latin name "colla corii asini"[3] (199 hits). _dk (talk) 14:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

• No. For example, the first of those Scholar hits is in the journal Zhongguo Zhong Yao Za Zhi which is Chinese. If you want to work in the Chinese language, please do so at the Chinese wikipedia. Warden (talk) 16:08, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

The content being Chinese does not change the fact that the titles and abstracts you see are in English. I can do without the demeaning tone too. _dk (talk) 23:56, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

The word ejiao does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. That means that it is not English. This is the English language wikipedia and so we use English words like donkey supported by English language sources. Warden (talk) 00:41, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

In point form:

• Yes. The product seems to be the same. Even the Donkey-hide gelatin article refers to it being used as a Chinese product. I really don't care about the name, but, there should not be two different articles.
• The lede image at Donkey-hide gelatin should not be a donkey. Whether Kobe beef or jerky, the lede image at Beef will never be a cow.

• Our article beef has a prominent picture of a cow at the top. A picture of a donkey is pertinent here too as it shows the donkey's hide from which this substance is made. A picture of some cardboard boxes is not so informative because they could contain anything and are promotional in nature. I will in due course take a picture of the actual substance. Warden (talk) 00:41, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

• Colonel. Thanks for the politeness. It makes all the difference.

• Ah. A picture of the substance would be great. I'm in China. I will ask at the pharmacy today. I will spill it onto a slice of paper and take a snapshot of it. Then I'll throw it into the garbage.

• Donkey pic? Okay, fine. I guess that's better than a box. I'm sure we can all agree that a photo of a pile of donkey powder is better than a box, or a donkey, or a donkey in a box. Being precise: Beef has a pic of a cow under the pic of the product.

• Now, the matter of duplicates. Jiaozi, and a zillion like it, have a Western equivalent, dumpling in that case, and they are not in the dictionary. So, I'm not sure what we should do. I've looked for policy on duplicates in the past, but crapped out. Thoughts? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:39, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

• Jiaozi should be moved to pot sticker or redirected to Dumpling#Chinese_cuisine. I am familiar with seeing those on the menu as gyoza, which is the Japanese name for them. But we are not the Japanese or Chinese wikipedia and so should use an English name. But note that all four words (dumpling, pot sticker, jiaozi and gyoza) appear in the OED and so they all have some claim to familiarity in English. But that is not the case for ejiao which is a completely alien phrase. Warden (talk) 07:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay. That makes sense. So, just to be clear:

• If two articles exist about the same thing, then pick the English article, and move the Chinese article's content into a section within the English article entitled something like "Chinese variant"..."In China, donkey gelatin is called ejiao, and is sold in pharmacies, blah blah."

• If it only exists in China, move it to the English name. Eg. Baijiu --> "Chinese white wine" or "White wine (Chinese). "White wine (called baijiu) is a type of vile hard liquor served in China."

I went to the pharmacy, but they only had donkey gelatin in boxes. The little plastic window on the box showed it as black goop. I'll try another place.

Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:16, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

• Warden: Please be more kind and polite. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:09, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Refresh discussion

So, about the merge. I agree with Colonel Warden. Instead of Donkey-hide gelatin being merged into Ejiao, it should be Ejiao that is merged into Donkey-hide gelatin. The substance seems to be exactly the same, and so the English name should prevail. Can we get some comments/supports/opposes? Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:59, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:59, 22 January 2012 (UTC)