Liuzhou Weather
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Where is Liuzhou?
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Liuzhou Twitter
Danwei Model Worker Award 2008
Minority Stamps
Zhuang Banner
Liuzhou is in Guangxi. Although Guangxi is often referred to as a 'province', technically it isn't. The official name is Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. This is because this is home to China’s largest ethnic minority, the Zhuang people. Liuzhou's population is said to be around 40% Zhuang.Anyway, the Zhuang people have their own language, also called Zhuang, which is unrelated to Chinese. It includes a number of dialects (particularly Northern and Southern Zhuang). Every public building in Guangxi has its name in both Chinese and Zhuang, and Zhuang is one of the five languages printed on every Chinese banknote. It is an official language in Guangxi.
The language did have a written form based in part on adapted Chinese characters, but this was known to few. In 1957, after the founding of the People's Republic, this was officially replaced by a system based on Roman letters. Even fewer people know it.
Liuzhou Government HQ, like every government building, is regularly decorated by long thin banners – always red – full of propaganda. Along with the rest of the population, I just don’t notice them anymore. Or at least not usually.
I was passing in a taxi the other day and saw this out of the corner of my eye. Today I returned. Yes, they are exhorting us to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the imposition of a writing system which next to no one can read. Well, there’s not much to do round here.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen Zhuang on a propaganda banner. Coincidentally, I was with a Zhuang friend who confirmed she had never seen it either (and no, she couldn’t read it!)
A few years ago, I was asked to help find someone to translate one sentence into Zhuang. It took me weeks before I finally tracked down a professor in Nanning’s Guangxi University for Nationalities who was able to do it, he thought.
I don’t know who they got to translate their banner but I guess they won’t be troubling him for another 50 years.
AHA!!!! NOW I know why my wife's ID card looks like it was written by Mr.
Mxyzlptlk! (She of course had no idea.) Her sister's a cop in LZ and their
office block is also done up in XRGYKZL-type spellings. No one could tell
me why. Cheers for the insight!
I was always fascinated by the Zhuang script - they used to have it over
the station in Guilin. It sounded like someone slurring mandarin after a
lot of baijiu.
Is it cold where you are?Just wondered as I'm packing clothes for the kids
before we arrive in Guilin on Thursday to see the inlaws.
Liuzhou is a reasonably warm 22°C in the day and around 10°C at night.
The Zhuang text actually says "I am Mr Magic (it is a rabbit) If you give
me 50 kuai, I won't turn you into a pumpkin"
There is a good post taking a critical look at the status of Zhuang script,
it's written in Chinese though.