'TAICHI' and 'KAPOK' won the Tropical Cyclone Name Nomination Contest
'TAICHI太極' and 'KAPOK木棉' won the Tropical Cyclone Name Nomination Contest (24 May 2005)
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The prize presentation ceremony for the 'Tropical Cyclone Name Nomination Contest', jointly organized by the Hong Kong Observatory and 'Happy Daily' of Radio 1, Radio Television Hong Kong, was held today (24 May). Among all the nominations submitted in the contest, the judging panel selected 'TAICHI太極' and 'KAPOK木棉' as the winning names. At the same time, the judging panel selected 'LIONROCK 獅子山', 'YUN-YEUNG 鴛鴦', 'DOLPHIN 白海豚' and 'LU-FENG 爐峰' as the standby names. In the selection process, the Chinese and English versions of each name were regarded as a group and considered together.
The contest received good response from the public. More than 25,000 nominations were received and some of the names were nominated by more than one person. There were about 10,000 groups of names participating in the contest. Most of them were names of persons, animals, plants, food and places.
Reasons submitted for nominating 'TAICHI太極' and 'KAPOK木棉' included 'TAICHI is a very popular sport in Hong Kong', 'Hong Kong holds a Guinness World Record of the largest group of people playing TAICHI together', 'the structure of a tropical cyclone resembles the sign of TAICHI', 'KAPOK is common in Hong Kong', 'there are a lot of colourful KAPOK in Hong Kong every spring', 'the vitality and ever growing spirit of KAPOK are symbolic of Hong Kong people', etc.
The judging panel of the contest comprises well-known personalities in the academic and cultural circles. They are (in alphabetical order) Dr Louis Cha (famous writer), Ms Kelly Chen (The Outstanding Youth 2004), Mr Chu Pui-hing (Director of Broadcasting), Mr Lam Chiu-ying (Director of the Hong Kong Observatory), Mr Lee Yee (famous columnist), Professor Ng Ching-fai (President & Vice-Chancellor of Hong Kong Baptist University), Ms Bernadette Tsui (famous columnist) and Ms Ada Wong (Chairperson of Wanchai District Council and famous columnist).
Ms Bernadette Tsui, one of the judges, said at the prize presentation ceremony, " 'TAICHI太極' and 'KAPOK木棉' are selected as the winning names in the contest because they bear Hong Kong characteristics and are easily pronounceable in both Chinese and English."
The Hong Kong Observatory will submit the winning names at the annual meeting of the ESCAP/WMO* Typhoon Committee to be held at the end of this year to replace two current tropical cyclone names provided by Hong Kong. A name proposed to the Typhoon Committee must receive the unanimous support of all its Members before it is adopted for identifying tropical cyclones over the western North Pacific and the South China Sea. Thus, the four standby names will also be submitted to the Typhoon Committee for consideration in the event that the winning names are rejected.
The 'Tropical Cyclone Name Nomination Contest' is part of the 'Safer Living' campaign - a public education and publicity programme of the SAR Government on natural disaster reduction and prevention in 2005. Details of the activities of the 'Safer Living' campaign can be found at the website http://saferliving.info.gov.hk. *
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