Nr9,

Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China. I'm a dual citizen of the United States and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Chinese (Mandarin) is the official language in Taiwan. Formal Chinese will always be written in Mandarin. Technically, Taiwan's official name is the "Republic of China," so Chinese web page is correct in both the language and region.

If you need a Chinese IME now, you can get one now at the Hong Kong iPhone Forums (http://www.iphone.org.hk).

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Too bad no zhuyin input (3rd party or official).

Btw Jason, that page is written in Traditional Chinese, which is not what mainland uses.

Also... mandarian is a spoken dialect, not written.

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Mat,

Mandarin is a written dialect as compared to written Cantonese 粵語 too; they have their own words and most mainlanders/外省人 wouldn't be able to understand it even if they knew the characters. I went to middle school in Taiwan.

Yup, Chinese = Republic of China. I use 繁體字, but I consider myself Chinese. Unless you are Green.

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I always like to point to this example:

http://www.junglewave.com/~jason/IMG_0156.jpg

俾多一蚊雞！

In standard Mandarin, that would mean: "Give me one more mosquito chicken."

In Cantonese/粵語, it would mean: "Give me another dollar."

The above image is in reference to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's initiative to increase taxi rates by $1/km.

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jason, i do not wish to turn this into a political discussion, but you do not have to be green to consider yourself taiwanese. Today, over 85% of people in Taiwan consider themselves to be solely Taiwanese. Things have changed over the past 20 years. Only mainlanders who moved to the US and stopped living in Taiwan still consider themselves Chinese. There is a reason the KMT is focusing on economic issues rather than political ones. Go to Taiwan now and ask people on the street. You are in the minority here.

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Then can you explain the results of the last election in Taiwan? 馬英九 being elected overwhelmingly into office? Rejection of two propositions to join UN as Taiwan?

馬英九's ascension to power is the death of the 台獨 movement. We all know that.

Taiwan won't be joining China any time soon, but when China is ready and becomes a democracy, I think we will see that at some point in the end of this century.

I was born in Taiwan. Do you consider me a Mainlander? Moreover, the question that I should be asking is, are you saying that Mainlanders and their children that were born in Taiwan are 2nd-class citizens in ROC?

The problem with Taiwan is that 陳水扁 has ruined Taiwan's culture.

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btw how are you typing chinese in here. this input box seems to disable chinese input with safari

ma ying jeou being elected into office is a result of people not being able to find jobs. this has nothing to do with national identity. if people in taiwan consider themselves chinese, why is he telling people that he is taiwanese to get votes?

about the referendums, the people who actually got a referendum ballot overwhelmingly voted yes. referendums in taiwan are ridiculous. A no show is considered a "no" by default. referendums should only count the ballots that are entered, same thing as any other type of voting process.

moreover, a lot of taiwanese see economic opportunity in china and do not want to piss china off. unfortunately, taiwanese people care more about whether they have rice to eat than their national identity. this can be seen throughout history as taiwanese welcomed dutch, japanese and chinese invaders with open arms.

First of all, I consider you a mainlander because you consider yourself a mainlander. and no one says they are 2nd class citizens. i am not sure what you are getting this from. Are immigrants to the US considered 2nd class citizens?

i doubt chen shui bian has any effect on taiwanese culture. taiwanese culture has developed over 500 years. i will continue to be proud of taiwanese culture and chew my betel nut while you sit there in america and make assertions about the national identity of people living in tw right now.

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Have it your way. I left Taiwan for high school, and I'm happily working in Hong Kong and the United States. I'm going back to see my parents this month and to see 馬英九 ascend to office.

The funny thing is 馬英九 was born in Hong Kong.

I can say I'm Taiwanese (like I can say I'm Arizonan as well as American) as much as I can say I'm Chinese.

I won't discuss this anymore here. You can keep hoping for Taiwan independence movement. But you'll see that this is the beginning of the end for it.

I don't just "sit" there in America. I work in the US and do supplier relations among our Chinese partners (鴻海:tw/cn, for example) and our company in HK and TW.

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actually, what i do see in the future is either china splitting up, or china never becoming a democracy. i doubt a democracy can sustain a population of 1.6 billion people all with widely varying ethnic interests. Any problems with the democracy in tw would be widely magnified. I do hope that china splits up as i do not believe it does not have the cultural homogeneity necessary to sustain a democratic nation. either china splits up, or many small cultures die out. The US was able to become what it is right now because they killed all the natives. i don't think it is possible with china these days... therefore wait and see: Its the beginning of the end of China. Your dreams of a great China are hopeless.

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@ Jason

Which Japanese IME are you talking about? I have not been able to find it >< The method for Japanese input in the screen is exactly what i have been asking for. It is identical to how the Japanese phones input Japanese and it is a very fast method. The method of typing with a qwerty keyboard and have it convert to japanese, like pinyin system for chinese, is simply not as fast.

Whether these screenshots are real or not i hope that is how Japanese input works because im desperately waiting for the iPhone to be released in Japan and hoping with a 3G model it will get there.

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Dammit, FSB... is your relentless spamming of Wired's comments section not enough for you anymore?

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