China Mountain Zhang (41 page)

Authors: Maureen F. McHugh

BOOK: China Mountain Zhang

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There seems to be a tradition in books that use Mandarin of explaining which version of Chinese romanization the author is using. If you need an explanation, here it is.

Mandarin is, of course, a tonal language that uses characters, and it does so for a very good reason. Mandarin spelled alphabetically (or romanized) contains insufficient information to be clear to the reader. A simple example is that, for the sound “jiu,” there are twenty common meanings—including “old,” “alcohol” or “wine,” “nine,” “uncle” (or more specifically, “mother’s brother”), and “vulture,” written with twenty different characters. When the word is spelled out using an alphabet, there is only context to determine its meaning.

There are a multitude of systems to transcribe Chinese characters into alphabetical forms. Probably the most familiar is the Wade-Giles. (Examples of Chinese rendered in Wade-Giles are “Mao Tse Tung,” “Chungking,” and “Peking.”) There is also the Yale system, and a system used in Taiwan. I, personally, am most familiar with the version used in the People’s Republic of China,
usually called Pinyin Romanization. (In Pinyin, “Mao Zedong,” “Chongqing,” and “Beijing.”) I have used Pinyin for two reasons: First, because it is the conceit of this novel that the People’s Republic of China has become the dominant world power, and second, and if I am to be honest, the more pressing reason, it is the system I studied under both in the U.S. and in China.

—Maureen F. McHugh

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

CHINA MOUNTAIN ZHANG

This book was originally published as a Tor
^®hardcover in March 1992.

Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

An Orb Edition
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

Tor Books on the World Wide Web:
http://www.tor-forge.com

eISBN 9781466827134

First eBook Edition : August 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McHugh, Maureen F.

China Mountain Zhang / Maureen F. McHugh.