Taiwan
Taiwan (臺灣 Táiwān) is the common name of the Republic of China (ROC) which governs the island of Formosa and several smaller outlying island groups of Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, Lanyu (Orchid Island), and Green Island.
There is a page on Taiwan Rules
Malweth - I'm heading to the Taipei region (Chung-li) late summer this year and wondered what kinds of Go resources I might be expected to find? Just wish I spoke Mandarin...
gimpf: Don't worry about Mandarin, although taiwanese people can speak it, they have their own, quite different dialect too :) And, if this wouldn't be enough, enjoy the traditional chinese characters instead of those we learn in our language courses...
Malweth - Yes, I'm told that even if you spoke some Mandarin, there's a good chance of getting a Taxi driver who only speaks Taiwanese. I will be looking at Chinese Go Terms though!
taiji : Having spent some time in taiwan and being married to a taiwanese, I found it quite difficult to find any go players in the south (hsinying, cha yi, kenting).. or any 'serious' go materials at all. Plastic stones and cardboard boards are plentiful though because children like to play wuzeqi (gomoku). As for mandarin/taiwanese dialects, everyone speaks mandarin now, or so I am told or so I heard.
unkx80: The Taiwanese often speak in a Chinese dialect known as Hokkien, just as the Hong Kong people often speak in another Chinese dialect called Cantonese. While it is true that the Chinese did unify the written language, they did not unify the spoken language.
malweth: As I understand it, Hoklo are the native people of Taiwan, and their language is not a dialect of Chinese (though it may have some influences from Chinese). The Chinese have unified the written language, except for Taiwan which uses the "Traditional" characters (rather than the "simplified"). Additionally, however, the Chinese language was unified, or at least made official. Pu-tong-hua (Mandarin) is the official language of China (called Guoyu in Taiwan), though Cantonese and others are still used. This is all quite off topic, however... :D
ajility?: There is a bit of confusion here at the moment. The Taiwanese dialect is called "Hokkienese" meaning Fujianese, the dialect spoken by Han Chinese in the mainland province of Fujian which is opposite Taiwan. The term Hokkien is also used to describe the Hoklo indigenous peoples of Taiwan, who naturally speak a non-Chinese language. The two groups are sometimes called the same name because they both lived in the same place (e.g. way the heck far away from any of the historical capitals of China). Nevertheless, there is a Fujianese-like Taiwanese dialect spoken commonly in Taiwan, especially outside of academic/business settings or by those without much education.