Taiwan – Environmental Leader

choi

Molly Michelson, Taiwan – Environmental Leader. Science Today; Beyond the headlines (of California Academy of Science), June 26, 2014 ("top story" in the home page).
www.calacademy.org/sciencetoday/ ... tal-leader/5515999/

Note:
(a) The latent (invisible to naked eyes but present if copied) of the photo is "Shei-Pa National Park"  (for Chinese spelling, see (c) below).

(b) At the bottom of the report was the credit: "Image: Peellden/Wikipedia," with a link.
(i) "Peelden" is just a "username" in Wikipedia--or more commonly, a screenname in the Web or a pen name in literature.
(ii) (Well I could not possibly recognize it. I hated mountain-climbing in Taiwan, and never try it in US.) I did find the particular photo there (the photo also appeared in the public domain of zh.wikipedia.org; the photographer could not be traced), whose legend reads, "武陵四秀."
(iii) 台灣百岳
zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%A3%E7%99%BE%E5%B2%B3
(section 3.4 四秀: 又稱武陵四秀，因近武陵農場 [qv])
(iv) One of the four mountain peaks at issue is "喀拉業山在泰雅語中，稱為「Babo Karaheye」，日文漢字轉寫為「加留坪」(Karuhei)；喀拉業即自Karaheye音譯而來."

What does that mean, " 日文漢字轉寫為「加留坪」(Karuhei)"?   Search zh.wikipedia.org with 日文漢字, and it automatically goes to a page titled 日本漢字, which is actually kanji.

The following is my own interpretation of the clause (which is correct, to an extent). Japanese (people) will have used katakana to represent "karuhei" (again the "i" following "e" simply signals a long vowel for "e"--kind of doubling the duration of "e" sound). But most Taiwanese can not read katakana. So "karuhei" has to be represented by kanji. Thus 加, 留, 坪 are chosen (possibly by Taiwanese, not Japanese). But it is an educated guess. You see, 加 and 留 are the prototypes of "ka" (in both hiragana and katakana), see ka (kana)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka_(kana)
(table)
and
"ru" (in hiragana ONLY). See ru (kana)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ru_(kana)
(table)
(v) In Japanese language "hei" can be the Chinese pronunciation for kanji 平 (more common), 坪 or a few others.
(vi) A more famous example is 高雄市歷史
zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AB%98%E9%9B%84%E5%B8%82%E6%AD%B7%E5%8F%B2
(台灣總督府改名「高雄」, from 「打狗」)

But Japanese colonist pronounced 高雄 as "taka-o" (the Japanese pronunciations of kanji 高 and 雄, respectively). Then Chiang Kai-shek's army came and they kept the name, could not pronounce Japanese and so pronounce 高雄 in Mandarin!

(c)  The official site:
武陵四秀. 雪霸國家公園管理處, undated
www.spnp.gov.tw/Article.aspx?a=1w%2bby5rFa%2bw%3d&lang=1
(the map does not mark 武陵農場)
(d) The report quotes US EPA as saying, “From the families all over Taiwan—to the students here in this room—you are among the most environmentally responsible people in the world."

Naturally "you" are the subject--and "from * * * to" right before it defined the scope of "you."