Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Will Hong Kong be no longer to call Hong Kong?

Next month I will go Hong Kong for visit. At the same time, I may go Shanghai for a few days if possible. I found that quite a lot of people now go by train instead of flight. Thus I started my research on train. There is a direct train traveling between Hong Kong and Shanghai. Each way operates every other day.

I am surprised that a lot of people emphasized in their blogs to look for the word Jiulong for buying return train ticket in China. Huh? Jiulong? Where is it? Should it be Hong Kong? Some place in Hong Kong? Or the train station in Hong kong?

The train station in Hong Kong to Shanghai is called Hung Hom Train Station and located in Kowloon, Hong Kong. There is no place or a train station in Hong Kong called Jiulong. Then where is Jiulong?

After having done some digging, I finally reach my conclusion. Jiulong is the direct translation from Mandarin pronunciation to English. It is actually referring to Kowloon, the official name in Hong Kong. Why did China make this new name to Kowloon, Hong Kong? Has Kowloon already had a name in English? It is extremely confusing. This makes me wonder that Hong Kong may have a new name in English soon. 50 years unchanged? Certainly something have been changed on their ways. Look! The name is one of the changes. Would Hong Kong be called Xiang Gang in English in the future or whatever name in Mandarin? Note that Xiang Gang is the Mandarin pronunciation in English for "Hong Kong" according to one of the online dictionaries. Please correct me if it is incorrect.

Will Hong Kong people accept this new name? Unfortunately, a lot of people don't even know.


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