Talk:Passaleão incident

"Baishaling" is a misnomer

"Baishaling" doesn't appear anywhere in the source cited. The Portuguese name given was "Passaleão", a Chinese spelling given was "Pak Shan Lan"(Garrett 2010) or "Pak Shan Lan"(Ride 1999). "Pak" is the translation of "北"(north) in Cantonese (the language spoken in the area.) The name of the fort from Chinese sources is "拉塔石炮台", and it doesn't contain any character in Baishaling. The Chinese source also mentioned "北山嶺", which would sound similar to "Pak Shan Lan" in Cantonese, I suppose(I am a native speaker of Mandarin, but not Cantonese). If you check the Google map, you can see 北嶺 is right next to Paotaishan Park, where Passaleão is a part of.

Calling it "Baishaling" is very misleading since it's not used in either Chinese, Portuguese or English sources. I am going to rename the article using the Portuguese name, since it is clearly and unambiguously used in multiple sources. The most often used Chinese name for the incident actually doesn't refer to the fort, but refers to the Barrier Gate(關閘) that is south of the fort. --Happyseeu (talk) 21:28, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

David Brookshaw in two works ("Imperial Diasporas and the Search for Authenticity: The Macanese Fiction of Henrique de Senna Fernandes", Lusotopie 2000: 271–82 and Perceptions of China in Modern Portuguese Literature: Border Gates 2002) uses "Baishaling". I cite him because these works predate this article, so there is no chance of Wikipedia influencing his choices. Geoffrey Gunn, Encountering Macau: A Portuguese City-State on the Periphery of China, 1557–1999 (1996), also uses Baishaling. Gunn has also used the term in more recent works.

I even tracked down the Chinese form: 白沙铃 (I may not have that last character right, I do not know Chinese). This is from Christina Miu Bing Cheng, "On the Border Gate: João Maria Ferreira do Amaral and Vicente Nicolau de Mesquita", in Revista de Cultura = Review of Culture, 33 (Instituto Cultural do Governo da R.A.E. de Macau, 2010), at p. 103. You can find a PDF of this issue here. Srnec (talk) 01:42, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for giving more citation. Unfortunately, none of them cite where the name came from. The Chinese sources are quite clear where the fort is located(there is a memorial park for it today) and called. There is indeed a location called 白沙岭 (and there is a city park there), which is about 7km north from the fort according to Baidu map. 白沙岭 is not listed on Google map or Apple map, but I've marked Shixi park which is right next to it on Google map, so people can get an idea how far it is. The other issue is no Chinese source (or Portuguese source for that matter) called it by that name, when it looks like some translation from Chinese. --Happyseeu (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

I've found out where the name Passaleão came from. Montalto de Jesus, Historic Macao, 1902. p. 292 (p. 333 on archive.org) said "the battlements of Passaleão - so was Pac-Sa-Leong thenceforth styled by the Portuguese -" 'Pac-Sa-Leong' could be how 白沙岭 is pronounced in Cantonese. Though I'm still puzzled why the fort would be called by a location several miles away. Either there is another location that's close by with the same name, or it refers to 北山岭. Someone fluent in Cantonese can help here. --Happyseeu (talk) 07:38, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

As a Cantonese speaker I can say that Pac-Sa-Leong is indeed the Cantonese pronunciation of 白沙岭. Also, it is not a far stretch of imagination for a fort to be named after a nearby landmark, even though the landmark itself might not be in the fort's immediate vicinity. And 岭 can mean "ridge" instead of "peak", so the fort in question could consider itself part of the Baishaling ridge. While the article's title should remain at "Passaleão incident", I think the fort itself should be referred by its Chinese name "Baishaling" rather than the Portuguese "Passaleão" since it is a Chinese fort on Chinese soil. _dk (talk) 20:27, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I have edited the article in line with your suggestion. Please vet my edits. My understanding is that Pak Shan Lan (and Pac Sa Leong) are Cantonese renderings of the same word that is Baishaling in Mandarin and that it is a ridge several miles north of the fort's location, which is today called Paotaishan. Srnec (talk) 00:06, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

The Chinese name of the fort is the Latashi (Lap-kap Shan) fort. "Lap-kap Shán" is an older spelling which seems to be based on the Cantonese pronunciation of the same name: 拉塔石, as said above. When referring to Chinese forts in English, it was common to call the fort after the place it was located in (or a nearby landmark) rather than a direct translation of the fort name itself. That's why Latashi (Lap-kap Shan) isn't as common in English and Portuguese texts compared to Passaleão or Pak Shan Lan (Baishaling). Spellcast (talk) 09:19, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I would not object to that, but "Lap-kap Shan" does not sound like 拉塔石 in Cantonese. I would say it's closer to "Lai Tap Sek" (completely different), so sources using "Lap-kap Shan" are either mistaken or are referring to a different location. _dk (talk) 02:58, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

The Chinese Repository in August 1849 called it the "Lap-kap Shán fortalice".[1] In Macao 400 Years (1996) by Fei Chengkang, it's called the "Latashi (Lap-kap Shan) fortalice". Could be another place but it's probably just a mutation of the same word. Spellcast (talk) 09:36, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Macao 400 Years is a translation of a Chinese original. If anybody has access to the original, they could check what is being translated as "Latashi (Lap-kap-Shan)". Srnec (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Google shows The Chinese Repository as the only source saying Lap-kap-Shan fortalice. It was probably later added for clarity in Fei's book, perhaps by the translators. Wouldn't be surprised if the original doesn't even have that name. Spellcast (talk) 19:00, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Chinese version of Macao 400 Years on Google Book says "自1849年来一直発等的拉塔石炮台和北山崎炮台", and a decree in 1889 says "本澳關閘至北山嶺中間一帶地方". It shows that there is another fortress at 北山嶺, in addition to the one at 拉塔石, so that clears up part of the confusion. --Happyseeu (talk) 04:04, 8 March 2019 (UTC)