miyakoji Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 (edited) An interesting news item from Tetsudou Fan News, apparently Sanyo Dentetsu and Taiwan's TRA have entered into a 'sister railway' agreement, the reasons being that they both have seaside lines and both have stations written as 亀山, which is Kameyama in Japanese and Guishan in Chinese. Interestingly, while trying to find out how to say that in Chinese, I noticed that there's also one near Seoul, which would be read Gusan. Looking at the list of stations on TRA's Western Line (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRA_Western_Line), there are several stations that are or easily could be Japanese station/place names. Some damn nice looking station buildings, by the way. If I recall correctly, a lot of this infrastructure was built while Taiwan was a Japanese colony, does anyone know if these names are really the Taiwanese locality names or not? A few examples: 松山 - Matsuyama/Songshan 板橋 - Itabashi/Banqiao 富岡 - Tomioka/Fugang 大村 - Oomura/Dacun 田中 - Tanaka/Tianzhong 大林 - Obayashi/Dalin 水上 - Minakami/Shuishang 岡山 - Okayama/Gangshan 高雄 - Takao/Kaohsiung http://railf.jp/news/2015/02/17/173000.html Edited February 18, 2015 by miyakoji 1 Link to comment
dabsan Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 One of my favourite old wooden station buildings in Taiwan is Jingtong on the Pingxi Line. Which is one of the four remaining wooden stations in Taiwan, the station is Japanese style and so well-preserved. The Pingxi line is a single track line and very beautiful, it's mainly a tourist line and was originally built for transporting coal, While traveling in Taiwan I often want to read the place names in Japanese, also remember when it's xi (it's pronounced shi) Pingxi (pronounced pingshi). :) Link to comment
miyakoji Posted February 20, 2015 Author Share Posted February 20, 2015 read the place names in JapaneseYes I have this tendency too, but I try not to as they don't like it. But, I have no idea what they are in Chinese, and I wouldn't get the tone right even if I knew the syllable. My alternative is saying in English what each character means. "Yeah, let's go to Big Woods Station." But then there are cases where I have no idea, or a character doesn't have a really concrete meaning, etc... 1 Link to comment
foxhsu Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 Yes, those are local names. They got the names when in Japan colon period. Link to comment
miyakoji Posted February 20, 2015 Author Share Posted February 20, 2015 long time no see, Fox. How's it going? Link to comment
dabsan Posted February 20, 2015 Share Posted February 20, 2015 Yes I have this tendency too, but I try not to as they don't like it. But, I have no idea what they are in Chinese, and I wouldn't get the tone right even if I knew the syllable. My alternative is saying in English what each character means. "Yeah, let's go to Big Woods Station." But then there are cases where I have no idea, or a character doesn't have a really concrete meaning, etc... Yes I have had the same experience, telling Taiwanese friends similar things ... eg oh we are at big woods station or pine tree mountain Songshan and asking them where is the mountain? :) Link to comment
foxhsu Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 long time no see, Fox. How's it going? Kind of busy for work these days and my vacation. Now I am in Taiwan and to Japan next week. ;-) Link to comment
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