Xiangxiang

See also: xiāngxiàng, xiǎngxiǎng, xiǎngxiàng, and xiǎngxiang

English

Alternative forms

• Hsiang-hsiang (Wade–Giles)
• Siangsiang (Postal Romanization)

Etymology

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 湘鄉 / 湘乡 (Xiāngxiāng).

Proper noun

Xiangxiang

1. A county-level city in Xiangtan, Hunan, China, formerly a county.
   • [1961, Siao-yu, “Back to School”, in Mao Tse-tung and I Were Beggars‎^[1], Hutchinson & Co., →OCLC, page 31:

     From the first day, I knew that he was Mao Tse-tung and he knew that I was Siao Shu-tung, which was my school name, since we were distant neighbors in the country region from which we both came. Our homes were approximately thirty kilometers apart, and we lived in neighboring districts. I came from Siangsiang, and he lived across the border in Siangtan.]

   • [1976, Charlton M. Lewis, Prologue to the Chinese Revolution: The Transformation of Ideas and Institutions in Hunan Province, 1891-1907‎^[2], Harvard University Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 8:

     This rural character became the backbone of Tseng Kuo-fan’s Hunan Army, which was recruited mainly from the hilly farm areas. Tseng’s home district of Hsiang-hsiang west of the Hsiang River ultimately furnished 52 generals (41.9%) and many of the rank and file,29 while such districts as Pao-ch’ing in the upper Tzu Valley and Hsin-ning near the mountainous Kwangsi border in the south also contributed many officers and men.]

   • [1980, Dick Wilson, “1893-1910 Child of the Snake”, in The People's Emperor, Mao: A Biography of Mao Tse-tung‎^[3], Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →ISBN, →OCLC, page 14:

     Mao’s father decided to apprentice Mao to a rice shop in Hsiangtan with which he had some connection. Mao was not against the idea, but he had also heard from his cousin Wen about a new school in his mother’s county of Hsianghsiang which taught— and by radical methods—some of the “new knowledge” of the West, with less emphasis on the classics.]

   • 2009 December 8, Sharon LaFraniere, “China Stampede Kills 8 Students”, in The New York Times‎^[4], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 December 2023, Asia Pacific‎^[5]:

     The accident occurred as more than 400 students at Yucai Middle School in Hunan Province headed back to their dormitories after evening classes. […]
     The injured were taken to three hospitals in Xiangxiang, a city of about 900,000. “They are so young,” said an aide at Hospital No. 2. “They looked so pitiful.”

Translations

county-level city in Hunan

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 湘鄉 / 湘乡 (zh) (Xiāngxiāng)

Further reading

• Saul B. Cohen, editor (1998), “Xiangxiang”, in The Columbia Gazetteer of the World‎^[6], volume 3, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 3501, column 2
• Xiangxiang, Hsiang-hsiang, Hsianghsiang at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.