S2-E20 - Mr. and Mrs. Giles - *Wade-Giles Chinese Romanization

<p>Why is "Kaohsiung" spelled so strangely? Shouldn't it be closer to "Gao-Shung"? (Or we could just use Hanyu Pinyin, "Gāoxióng"). Well, many names in Taiwan are spelled with the Latin alphabet, using a romanization system popularized by Mr. Herbert Giles, a British consul who spent 25 years in the treaty ports of China and Taiwan. The -- for some -- infamous Wade-Giles system renders "Pingdong" as "P’ing-tung," and "Taidong" as "T’ai-tung."  It’s big on hyphens and apostrophes, too – T’ai-pei, T’ai-wan, Nan-t’ou – but this punctuation is seldom used correctly.</p> <p>Mr. Giles played an important ro...