Talk:Xian

Official writing is Xi'an, not Xian. Therefor moved. (WT-en) LiangHH, 04.01.06

Thank you for plunging forward. However the page has been moved back because Wikivoyage doesn't automatically use official names for its articles. Before moving this page again please first read Project:Article naming conventions and Project:Why Wikivoyage doesn't use official names. I note that Google gives:

• Xian - 3 million references
• Xi'an - 1.8 million references

I think Xian is the most common name, though Xi'an is also well known, so both names should be given approximately equal prominence.

Also there is a bug with having a single quote in a page name that causes page errors. I think the page should stay called Xian too because it is more popular and less problematic. Sorry to be a pain, but they are the guidelines. Please discuss as I know this is controversial. -- (WT-en) Huttite 07:08, 4 Jan 2006 (EST)

I think the apostrophe is strictly speaking unnecessary by the conventions of pinyin (which don't require it here) and by common sense assuming some familiarity with Chinese (neither X-ian nor Xia-n are possible). I suspect the intent of adopting it officially is to make the laowai pronounce "she-ahn" instead of "sheeann" -- but let's face it, unless they know pinyin, people will by default guess something like "ksee-ann" anyway, apostrophe or no apostrophe. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:48, 4 Jan 2006 (EST)

I am totally oblivious to what spoken Chinese words sound like. To me Xian reads like echsi-an or zi-an and rhymes with Exxon or zion, for example. I have to remember x in Chinese is more like sh rather than ch or zh in English. -- (WT-en) Huttite 16:02, 4 Jan 2006 (EST)

That the google search Xian gives more results, shows, most people dont know the official usage. So in my opinion, an encyclopedia would always have correct enteries, not enteries adjusted to common mistakes. Xian is 3Mio times spelled wrong on Google, Accomodation 9,9Mio times. However, I see the guidelines in wikivoyage are clear.(WT-en) LiangHH 12:00, 5 Jan 2006 (UTC+8)

Xian is the one syllable pinyin spelling of various single, solo, 1, Chinese characters. Xi'an is the two syllable pinyin spelling of the two, 2, Chinese characters 西安, the name of the city in question. Google finding more oranges than apples does not make them one fruit. The correct spelling works on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi'an and we should use it here, too. I have studied Chinese and can see that the need to write this correctly may not be as apparent to those who have not. I trust (WT-en) LiangHH knows something of the Chinese language. Liang is a Chinese surname. I think it is time to fix this simple error and record why. So I will ask (WT-en) Huttite to move Xian to Xi'an. Hope this helps :-) (WT-en) Rogerhc 02:06, 4 June 2007 (EDT)

We're not an encyclopedia. If Xian is more common, then we call it Xian, just like we call Bangkok "Bangkok", not Krung Thep. (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:45, 4 June 2007 (EDT)

Can I suggest everyone read Project:Article naming conventions and Project:Why Wikivoyage doesn't use official names again. Yes the official name for the Chinese might be Xi'an but the common English usage seems to be Xian. The page name, which creates the URL, is not so important provided both Xian and Xi'an both redirect to the same article. And while we are at it maybe we should also redirect she-ahn, sheeann and ksee-ann here as well, since they are how the English could spell the name phonetically. And NO I am not moving it unless there is a better reason than the official name. -- (WT-en) Huttite 04:47, 4 June 2007 (EDT)

I don't think it's worth the effort to create redirects for phonetic spellings. If someone's guessing at the spelling of a place name, odds are they're trying to remember how they saw it, not how they heard it.

Titling this page Xian is like a bird guide calling a bluebird a blue jay. Grrrrrrr. What kind of bird guide does that? Some people mistakenly write Xian when they mean Xi'an. So what helps the traveler best is to make Xian a redirect to Xi'an, not to mis-title a travel guide page Xian. :-) (WT-en) Rogerhc 17:29, 7 June 2007 (EDT)

Well, the "correct" name is Xī'ān (if we're splitting hairs, the diacritics are in), Hsi-An, Sian, 西安, or even Сиань, depending on what system you are using. But we have a populist, "blue-jay" policy to use the most common English name, which does seem to be Xian. --(WT-en) Peterfitzgerald ^Talk 18:47, 7 June 2007 (EDT)

And this debate is particularly silly as there is no other town called Xian, with or without the apostrophe. So a traveler punches in "Xian", they get the right city. They punch in "Xi'an", they still get the right city. 有无有问题？ (WT-en) Jpatokal 01:57, 8 June 2007 (EDT)

Will anyone really object if I move this to the correct name Xi'an, of course with a redirect from Xian? Wikipedia and Commons both use Xi'an, as do Lonely Planet, Trip advisor, rail schedules, ... It was also the form in use among expats in China when I was there.

As I see it, this should be a completely uncontroversial change and is long overdue. The only plausible reason given above for using Xian is that the apostrophe might confuse the parser; that is clearly no longer true, if it ever was, since w:Xi'an, the redirect at Chang'an and Xiamen's suburbs Tong'an and Xiang'an all work fine. Pashley (talk) 15:57, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

We should use the same name for the city as WP and Commons do (shouldn't we?) so I'd say go ahead. ϒpsilon (talk) 16:14, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Kids' Castle

I have a TEFL and on the TEFL forum Kids' Castle is red flagged as being on of the places you should never work in China for reasons ranging from teachers not recieving thier pay for months to physical assaults on English teachers if they try to leave their jobs there. Should this be mentioned in the article? I think it should. 84.64.78.163 09:14, 6 May 2007 (EDT)

Page structure

There's something strange going on with the edit links - they take you to the wrong section. Also, not all the sections show up in the index at the top. I hope that this is the right place to make this kind of comment! --(WT-en) Christiantc 11:11, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

Trim down Tang Paradise description?

I am pretty sure the description on Tang Paradise in the Sights section is written by their PR department. The park itself is faux history, hardly worth the amount of words devoted to it. - Tigerleapgorge (talk) 18:43, 2 June 2014 (UTC)