{"id":518,"date":"2006-09-22T16:38:59","date_gmt":"2006-09-22T08:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2006\/a-shameless-proposal\/"},"modified":"2018-08-21T12:39:31","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T04:39:31","slug":"a-shameless-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2006\/a-shameless-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"a shameless proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Taipei city councilor with the KMT on Tuesday launched an attack on President Chen Shui-bian disguised as a signage proposal. His idea: Change the name of Ketagalan Boulevard (凱達格蘭大道\tKǎidágélán Dàdào<\/span>), the street leading to the Presidential Office. <\/p>\n

The city councilor, Yang Shi-qiu (楊實秋, Yang Shih-chiu), called for a change to Lǐ-yì-lián Dàdào<\/span>, which is literally Propriety, Righteousness, [and] Honesty Boulevard. While that might sound nice, it’s actually a disguised insult. <\/p>\n

John DeFrancis was all over this word play a long time ago in “The Singlish Affair,” the biting satire that leads off his essential book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy<\/em><\/a>. DeFrancis explains assigning the name Li Yilian to a person in his story: <\/p>\n

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The most complex is the name Lǐ Yìlián<\/span>. Those who know Chinese may get the point if it is written in characters: 禮義廉 or, in simplified characters, 礼义廉. The three characters mean respectively “propriety, morality, modesty” and form part of a four-character phrase listing a number of Confucian virtues of which the fourth is 恥 (chǐ<\/span> “a sense of shame”). The omission of the fourth character is part of a Chinese word game in which the reader is supposed to guess the last item when it is omitted — much as if we had to tell what is lacking in the list of the three Christian virtues of “Faith, Hope, and ______.” The omission of the fourth character is expressed as 無恥 or 无耻 (wúchǐ<\/span> “lacking a sense of shame”). In short, calling someone Mr. Lǐ Yìlián<\/span> seems to praise him as Mr. Propriety, Morality, and Modesty but actually insults him as Mr. Shameless. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

By renaming the street “people will know that the person who works at the Presidential Office at the end of the boulevard has no sense of chi<\/em> [恥, shame],” Yang said.<\/p>\n

Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou, who also serves as chairman of the KMT, didn’t care for the idea of his city having a Lǐ-yì-lián Dàdào<\/span> or Wúchǐ Dàdào<\/span> (both of which could be translated as “Shameless Boulevard” — the first figuratively, the second literally) but said that the name Lǐ-yì-lián-chǐ Dàdào<\/span> (“Propriety, Righteousness, Honesty, and a Sense of Shame Boulevard”) could be discussed. <\/p>\n

The name of Ketagalan Boulevard is especially interesting from a number of standpoints. <\/p>\n