From Takow to Kaohsiung

Xinhai Road (辛亥路), Taipei City

Mexico City has the Avenida Cinco de Mayo (May 5th Avenue) celebrating victory over the French in 1862, many Italian cities have a street or piazza named XX Settembre (September 20th) after the capture of Rome on that day in 1870 which completed the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy; and Taipei has Xinhai Road (辛亥路).

This commemorates the revolution of October 10th (“Double Tenth”, from which Banqiao and Taichung each has a 雙十路; Shuangshi Rd.) 1911 that ended imperial rule in China and established the Republic of China (ROC) on 1 January 1912 with Sun Yat-sen selected by the National Assembly as president, although he soon resigned to be replaced by Yuan Shi-kai (袁世凱), who negotiated the abdication by Pu Yi (溥儀), the last Qing emperor.

The character 辛 (Mdn. xin) is the 8th of 10 “heavenly stems” (天干; Mdn. tian-gan); and 亥 (Mdn. hai) is the 12th of 12 “earthly branches” (地支; Mdn. di-zhi). Combination of these two forms the “stems-and-branches” (干支) cycle of sixty terms, which was initially used for recording days (such as in Oracle Bone Script, China's earliest known systematic writing that dates from the late 2nd millennium BCE) and, later, for years. Thus 1971 was also a xinhai year, as 2031 will be too.

Each of the earthly branches also accords with a sign of the Chinese zodiac, meaning that each hai (亥) year is a “year of the pig”, each 子 (zi) year is a “year of the rat”, and so forth.



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