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52-667: The Grand Hotel ( Chinese : 圓山大飯店 ; pinyin : Yuánshān Dà Fàndiàn ; lit. 'Yuanshan Great Hotel') is a landmark located at Yuanshan (圓山) in Zhongshan District , Taipei , Taiwan . The hotel was established in May 1952 and the main building was completed on October 10, 1973. It is owned by the Duen-Mou Foundation of Taiwan, a non-profit organization, and has played host to many foreign dignitaries who have visited Taipei. The main building of

104-509: A certain extent in South Korea , remain virtually identical to traditional characters, with variations between the two forms largely stylistic. There has historically been a debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters . Because the simplifications are fairly systematic, it is possible to convert computer-encoded characters between the two sets, with the main issue being ambiguities in simplified representations resulting from

156-446: A clan. The crude writing is that of the artisans who made the coins, not the more careful script of the scholars who wrote the votive inscriptions on bronze. The style of writing is consistent with that of the middle Zhou period. Over two hundred inscriptions are known, many of which have not been fully deciphered. The characters can be found on the left or right of the central line and may be inverted or retrograde. The alloy of these coins

208-567: A dozen moulds were discovered at the Guanzhuang Mint, these were attributed to have been produced between 640 BCE and no later than 550 BCE, which according to Hao Zhao , an archaeologist at Zhengzhou University , in an article published in Antiquity makes it the world's oldest known mint. The walled and moated city of Guanzhuang itself (in present-day Henan Province) was established around 800 BCE, and its foundry, where bronze

260-582: A fragile, hollow socket, reminiscent of a metal shovel. Later versions of spade money had this socket transformed into a thin, flat piece, and over time, inscriptions were added to the spade coins to mark their denominations. Several versions of spade money circulated across the Chinese Central Plains during the Zhou dynasty period until they were abolished by the Qin dynasty in 221 BC in favour of

312-506: A length of about 5.2 centimeters and are commonly known as "small" (three hole) spades. The first modern documented three hole spade occurred around two centuries ago during the Manchu Qing dynasty period when it was acquired by artist and epigrapher Zhang Tingji (張廷濟, 1768–1848). The seal script characters that appear on the obverse inscription of this three hole spade are Xia Qu Yang (下邲陽, xià qu yáng ). The city of Xiaquyang

364-462: A maximum capacity of about 10,000 people. The hotel used to use bronze spade money as its room key card - which also appears on the embler of the Ministry of Finance (Taiwan) . Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages . In Taiwan , the set of traditional characters is regulated by

416-581: A professor of anthropology at the University of California Irvine and director of the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion, noted that the completeness of the find gives weight to the assertions made in Antiquity . Mauer stated that usually coins tend to be found “bundled together and completely lacking any of the original context of their production or their use,” while in this case

468-869: Is 産 (also the accepted form in Japan and Korea), while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan the accepted form is 產 (also the accepted form in Vietnamese chữ Nôm ). The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers;

520-515: Is believed to have been located in present-day Ningjin County , Hebei . The reverse inscription of this three hole spade is believed to be 17 tael (十七兩, shí qī liǎng ). This specimen has a length of 7.35 centimeters, a width of 3.7 centimeters, and weighs 13.4 grams. Zhang Tingji had later recorded this spade in his coin catalogue "Ancient Coin Rubbings" (古泉拓本, gǔ quán tà běn ), which had made

572-404: Is typically 80% copper, 15% lead, and 5% tin. They are found in hoards of hundreds rather than thousands, sometimes tied together in bundles. Although there is no mention in the literature of their purchasing power, it is clear that they were not small change. Flat-handled spade money does not have the hollow handle of the early spades. Nearly all have distinct legs, suggesting that their pattern

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624-493: The Chinese Commercial News , World News , and United Daily News all use traditional characters, as do some Hong Kong–based magazines such as Yazhou Zhoukan . The Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified characters. DVDs are usually subtitled using traditional characters, influenced by media from Taiwan as well as by the two countries sharing the same DVD region , 3. With most having immigrated to

676-704: The Ban Liang cash coins . Under the Xin dynasty created by Wang Mang spade money was reintroduced; there were 12 different types of spade money in the Xin dynasty, ranging in values from 100 to 1000 qián . In 2021 a paper was published about an old mint that was discovered at an archeological site in Henan Province; through radiocarbon-dating the spade money found there was estimated to have been created between 640 BC and no later than 550 BC, making it possibly

728-547: The Double Tenth Day in 1973, the main Grand Hotel building was completed and became an instant Taipei icon. In June 1995 a disastrous fire broke out on the roof of the main building during necessary reconstruction and refurbishment. As neither ladders nor high pressure pumps could reach the fire, the roof and the upper floors were destroyed. Not until 1998 did the hotel recover from the damage and fully reopen to

780-519: The Kensiu language . Spade money Spade money ( traditional Chinese : 布幣 ; simplified Chinese : 布币 ; pinyin : bù bì ) was an early form of coin and commodity money used during the Zhou dynasty of China (1045 to 256 BC). Spade money was shaped like a spade or weeding tool, but the thin blade and small sizes of spade money indicate that it had no utilitarian function. The earlier versions of spade coins tended to have

832-482: The Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters . These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of the predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by

884-767: The People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China , Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau , as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages written using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts . Korean hanja , still used to

936-640: The Shanghainese -language character U+20C8E 𠲎 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-20C8E —a composition of 伐 with the ⼝   'MOUTH' radical—used instead of the Standard Chinese 嗎 ; 吗 . Typefaces often use the initialism TC to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters, as well as SC for simplified Chinese characters . In addition, the Noto, Italy family of typefaces, for example, also provides separate fonts for

988-569: The Guanzhuang Mint was more conclusive strengthening the hypothesis that the Chinese invented money rather than the Lydians. The minting techniques that were employed at the Guanzhuang Mint are characterised by a number of things which indicate that the production of spade money wasn't a small-scale, sporadic experiment, but rather a well-planned and organised process such as batch production and standardisation, and quality control. Bill Maurer ,

1040-555: The People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters . Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. There are differences between the accepted traditional forms in mainland China and elsewhere, for example the accepted traditional form of 产 in mainland China

1092-468: The Qing dynasty period, currently it is believed to be that there are more than 10 different city names that were used as obverse inscriptions for three hole spades and that there may be more than 30 varieties of the three hole spade in existence. Modern Chinese numismatists and scholars are puzzled as to why an ancient state would manufacture so many different varieties of a coin in such small quantities. In

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1144-532: The United States during the second half of the 19th century, Chinese Americans have long used traditional characters. When not providing both, US public notices and signs in Chinese are generally written in traditional characters, more often than in simplified characters. In the past, traditional Chinese was most often encoded on computers using the Big5 standard, which favored traditional characters. However,

1196-623: The Warring States period (475 to 221 BC). Arched foot spades have an alloy consisting of about 80% copper; for other types the copper content varies between 40% and 70%. The mystique and rarity which surrounds the "three hole spade" money (三孔布) is such that many Chinese coin collectors have dubbed it to be "the king of ancient coins". Three hole spades are often unique, with many variants of them being one-of-a-kind with some varieties being only known as fragments. While catalogues of ancient Chinese coinages have existed for over nine centuries,

1248-557: The Xia Qu Yang three hole spade to be the first ever three hole spade to appear in any form of publication. During the early Republic of China period the Xia Qu Yang three hole spade was acquired by the famous Chinese coin collector Zhang Shuxun (張叔馴, zhāng shū xùn ) and the rubbing of the Xia Qu Yang three hole spade has appeared in almost every major Chinese coin catalogue that has published since this period. Based on specimens that have appeared in coin catalogues dating back to

1300-544: The earliest mint known to have produced Lydian coins dates to sometime between 575 BCE and 550 BCE, which (if true) makes the Guanzhang Mint the world's oldest known mint. Meanwhile the proposed date of 650–500 BCE (based on ceramic typology) for the minting remains from the foundries at the Xintian and Xinzheng sites remains conjectural and has never been confirmed by radiocarbon-dating, but the radiocarbon-dating for

1352-421: The end of the Warring States period. Scholars are divided over the attribution and they have attributed it to Zhao , Zhongshan , and Qin . Based on archaeological finds and digs in the modern era as well as the placenames of the cities which have been identified from the obverse inscriptions on various three hole spades, the strongest evidence points towards the hypothesis that they were produced by Zhao. While

1404-495: The entire mint as well as used casts were found. Mauer further noted that an entire foundry, which is full of carbon residue associated with the production of the item itself, was discovered lending more weight to the accuracy of the radiocarbon-dating proving the authenticity of the assertions made by the Zhao and other researchers. Maurer further told National Geographic that the apparent level of standardisation of coin minting at

1456-435: The existence of three hole spades has only been known to modern people for around two centuries because of their rarity. Most known examples of three hole spade money are in the hands of private collectors who reside outside of mainland China . The attribution of three hole spades remains unclear. Three hole spades are believed to have circulated as a form of currency in what is now eastern Shanxi and Hebei sometime during

1508-533: The fact that they use the Zhu and tael denominations are used as arguments that they might have been produced by Qin. The obverse inscription of a three hole spade usually contains the name of city where it was produced. While its reverse inscription reads its denomination which was either 1 tael (兩) or 12 zhu (十二朱). The 1 tael spades typically have a length of about 7.2 centimeters and are commonly known as "large" (three hole) spades. The 12 zhu spades typically have

1560-400: The hollow socket where a handle would be attached for use as a genuine tool. This socket is rectangular in its cross-section and still retains the clay from the casting process. In the socket, the hole that fixes the tool to its handle is also reproduced. The inscriptions on these coins usually consist of one character, usually either a number, a cyclical character, a place name, or the name of

1612-656: The hotel claims, contains former President Chiang Kai-shek's desk and Madame Chiang's dressing table. The hotel also features auditoriums and meeting rooms, making it a popular venue for conventions and conferences in Taiwan. Ever since the opening of the hotel, rumour had it that secret passages ran from the hotel to the nearby Shilin Official Residence and farther out to the Presidential Office Building for Chiang's convenience. The truth

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1664-529: The hotel is one of the world's tallest Chinese classical buildings at 87 metres (285 ft) high. It was also the tallest building in Taiwan from 1973 to 1981. After Chiang Kai-shek 's retreat to Taiwan in 1949, Chiang felt it was difficult to accommodate foreign ambassadors due to the lack of five-star hotels in Taipei. He wanted to build an extravagant hotel that would cater to foreign guests. His wife Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang) suggested building it on

1716-493: The inverse is equally true as well. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters. In Hong Kong and Macau , traditional characters were retained during the colonial period, while the mainland adopted simplified characters. Simplified characters are contemporaneously used to accommodate immigrants and tourists, often from

1768-725: The mainland. The increasing use of simplified characters has led to concern among residents regarding protecting what they see as their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters. The use of simplified characters in government documents and educational settings is discouraged by the government of Taiwan. Nevertheless, with sufficient context simplified characters are likely to be successfully read by those used to traditional characters, especially given some previous exposure. Many simplified characters were previously variants that had long been in some use, with systematic stroke simplifications used in folk handwriting since antiquity. Traditional characters were recognized as

1820-682: The majority of Chinese text in mainland China are simplified characters , there is no legislation prohibiting the use of traditional Chinese characters, and often traditional Chinese characters remain in use for stylistic and commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertising. Traditional Chinese characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promulgation of the current simplification scheme, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. In

1872-983: The merging of previously distinct character forms. Many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between these character sets. Traditional characters are known by different names throughout the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially refers to traditional Chinese characters as 正體字 ; 正体字 ; zhèngtǐzì ; 'orthodox characters'. This term is also used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard characters, including both simplified, and traditional, from other variants and idiomatic characters . Users of traditional characters elsewhere, as well as those using simplified characters, call traditional characters 繁體字 ; 繁体字 ; fántǐzì ; 'complex characters', 老字 ; lǎozì ; 'old characters', or 全體字 ; 全体字 ; quántǐzì ; 'full characters' to distinguish them from simplified characters. Some argue that since traditional characters are often

1924-677: The official script in Singapore until 1969, when the government officially adopted Simplified characters. Traditional characters still are widely used in contexts such as in baby and corporation names, advertisements, decorations, official documents and in newspapers. The Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative in Southeast Asia regarding simplification. Although major public universities teach in simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications such as

1976-576: The old Taiwan Hotel on Yuanshan Mountain , the site of the ruins of the Taiwan Grand Shrine , a Shinto shrine during the Japanese rule . Chiang decided on a Chinese palace-style architecture to promote Chinese culture to the West through its extravagance. Taipei-based architect Yang Cho-Cheng was responsible for the design of the new hotel. The hotel was established in May 1952, but it

2028-700: The original standard forms, they should not be called 'complex'. Conversely, there is a common objection to the description of traditional characters as 'standard', due to them not being used by a large population of Chinese speakers. Additionally, as the process of Chinese character creation often made many characters more elaborate over time, there is sometimes a hesitation to characterize them as 'traditional'. Some people refer to traditional characters as 'proper characters' ( 正字 ; zhèngzì or 正寫 ; zhèngxiě ) and to simplified characters as 簡筆字 ; 简笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'simplified-stroke characters' or 減筆字 ; 减笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'reduced-stroke characters', as

2080-507: The public. Following the fire, the two dragon heads on the roof were rotated 180 degrees to point inwards. As dragons are traditionally a symbol of rain and water, this was intended to symbolize preparedness against a future fire. With its vermilion columns, the roof makes the hotel a visible showcase of Chinese architecture and culture. The hotel itself contains numerous objets d'art, wall panels, paintings, carvings, and significant restaurants. Dragon motifs are frequently intertwined throughout

2132-567: The site "lends weight to the hypothesis that anthropologists and archaeologists have long held: that money emerges primarily as a political technology, not an economic technology." as they were found at a site of high political importance. George Selgin , director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute , says while he notes that it is an impressive find, "It doesn't change our basic understanding of when

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2184-528: The traditional character set used in Taiwan ( TC ) and the set used in Hong Kong ( HK ). Most Chinese-language webpages now use Unicode for their text. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hant to specify webpage content written with traditional characters. In the Japanese writing system , kyujitai are traditional forms, which were simplified to create shinjitai for standardized Japanese use following World War II. Kyūjitai are mostly congruent with

2236-985: The traditional characters in Chinese, save for minor stylistic variation. Characters that are not included in the jōyō kanji list are generally recommended to be printed in their traditional forms, with a few exceptions. Additionally, there are kokuji , which are kanji wholly created in Japan, rather than originally being borrowed from China. In the Korean writing system , hanja —replaced almost entirely by hangul in South Korea and totally replaced in North Korea —are mostly identical with their traditional counterparts, save minor stylistic variations. As with Japanese, there are autochthonous hanja, known as gukja . Traditional Chinese characters are also used by non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Maniq people living in Thailand and Malaysia use Chinese characters to write

2288-518: The ubiquitous Unicode standard gives equal weight to simplified and traditional Chinese characters, and has become by far the most popular encoding for Chinese-language text. There are various input method editors (IMEs) available for the input of Chinese characters . Many characters, often dialectical variants, are encoded in Unicode but cannot be inputted using certain IMEs, with one example being

2340-442: The various structures that make up the hotel, earning the hotel the name "The Dragon Palace". Besides dragons, lion and plum flower motifs also make a significant presence in the hotel. Each of the eight guest levels represents a different Chinese dynasty, as reflected through the murals and general decor. The hotel has a total of 490 rooms. The rooms facing south offer guests a panoramic view of Taipei City. The presidential suite, as

2392-587: The words for simplified and reduced are homophonous in Standard Chinese , both pronounced as jiǎn . The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han dynasty c.  200 BCE , with the sets of forms and norms more or less stable since the Southern and Northern dynasties period c.  the 5th century . Although

2444-619: The world's oldest known mint. meaning that it is possible that the earliest known coinage was invented by the Chinese and not the Lydians as is commonly believed. Though the spade coins that were found at the Guanzhuang site are not as old as the metal coins that were discovered in the ancient city of Ephesus . Hollow-handled spades ( Chinese : 布幣 ; pinyin : bùbì ) are a link between weeding tools used for barter and stylised objects used as money. Although flimsy, they retain

2496-875: The year 1974, a farmer in Fugou County , Henan , had unearthed a bronze three-legged tripod (鼎, dǐng ). Stashed inside this bronze tripod were eighteen specimens of spade money. 1 of these spades was a hollow-handled spade (空首幣), while all the remaining 17 spade money were flat-handled spades (平首幣). All of these unearthed spades are notably made of silver and are now on display at the Henan Museum . This also notably makes it China's first ever recorded instance of silver coinage, according to an article in "China Numismatics Volume 3 of 1983" ( simplified Chinese : 中国钱币 1983年第3期 ; traditional Chinese : 中國錢幣 1983年第3期 ; pinyin : zhōng guó qián bì yì qiān jiǔ bǎi bā shí sān nián dì sān qī ). Two spade coins and

2548-560: Was cast and beaten into ritual vessels, weapons, and tools, opened around the year 770 BCE. Excavations occurred between the years 2015 and 2019. Hao Zhao claimed that it wasn’t for another 150 years that workers at the Guanzhuang foundry would also begin to mint spade coins outside the inner city's southern gate. Zhao stated that while other research has dated coins from the Kingdom of Lydia (a historical country in present-day Turkey ) to have been created as early as 630 BCE, he notes that

2600-625: Was expanded several times before it became the landmark as it is known today. The swimming pool, tennis court, and the membership lounge were constructed in 1953, and the Golden Dragon Pavilion and Golden Dragon Restaurant opened in 1956. The Jade Phoenix Pavilion and Chi-Lin Pavilion opened in 1958 and 1963, respectively. In 1968 the hotel was rated as one of the world's top ten hotels by the US Fortune magazine. Finally, on

2652-403: Was influenced by the pointed shoulder hollow-handled spades with further styling for easy handling. They are generally smaller and sometimes have denominations specified in their inscriptions in addition to place names. In combination with the little evidence of establishment dates of some mint towns, flat-handled spade money could have been a later development. Archaeological evidence dates them to

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2704-502: Was uncovered after the 1995 fire as part of the safety commission that was conducted. The secret passages were revealed to be two air-raid tunnels , each of them 180 m in length leading to nearby parks, not to the presidential residence or the emergency headquarters as rumours had suggested. The western passage is equipped with a slide for the disabled as an alternative to the spiraling stairs. The exits are obscured by concrete walls, thus escaping public detection for decades. The tunnels have

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