Re: Chiang Kai-shek

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.collective.com.au>]

   Re: Chiang Kai-shek

   There are many books about Chiang Kai-shek.
Chiang Kai-shek (Kai Shek means spliting the rocks) was born
Zheng San-fa (San Fa means the third prosperous). He never signed 
himself as Chiang Kai-shek but Jiang Zhong-zheng. Before he gained power
while still a military student in Japan his name was Jiang Zhi Qing.
When he joined Tong Meng Hui, the progenitor of KMT, he used the name
Jiang Zong Zheng: Jiang (surname) Zong (ancestral) Zheng (surname)
as he wanted to remember his ancestral surname, Zheng.  
Later he changed his name to Jiang Zhong Zheng (Zhong Zheng means
central of government). 

   It is a long story on why he changed his surname from Zheng to Jiang
and his birth place from Fan Cheng town near Xu Zhou city in Henan
province to Feng Hua town in Zhejiang province. People living in Feng Hua 
speak Wu dialect. I shall write about the childhood of Chiang Kai-shek 
if time permits. 

   Dr Sun Yat-sen (Yat-sen means daily renovation) was born Sun Dai-chang 
(Dai Chang means very prosperous) and his alias was Nakayama in Japanese
and it is Zhong Shan in Chinese, (Zhong-shan means central mountain
towering over everything else). Dr Sun Yat-sen was well known by his
Japanese name Nakayama (Zhong Shan) by the Chinese through out the world.
Officially he signed as Sun Wen but not Sun Yat-sen or Sun Zhong-shan
or Nakayama. 

   Mao Ze-dong (Ze Dong means deluging the east or the east is red) was
born Mao Run-zhi. His pen name was Er Shi Ba Hua (twenty eight strokes as
the three characters of Mao Ze-dong consisting of twenty eight strokes).

   The pen name of Zhou En-lai (the late former Prime Minister of China, 
The current PM of China Li Peng is the adopted son of Zhou En-lai) was
Wu Hao which means a group of great men.

CHUNG Yoon-Ngan.