Talk:Zheng Yi Sao

- an interesting biography of her in Chinese. Nice source for translation into the article. Kowloonese 02:08, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Jesus, there are way too many spellings of names in the first paragraph. We don't need two or more for every persons name. Recury 20:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Many Chinese names and words get transliterated in western letters with more than one spelling. The extra names are needed, because people often know the story from one of those names, but not others.

How do we know that the birth and death dates listed at the bottom are accurate? Is that affirmed in any of the listed sources? ...o0O [GUTH3] O0o... 04:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The AWE reference gets the timeframe of the movie wrong. AWE is set during the reign of one of the Georges, late 1700s at the earliest (and most likely). So only about a century before Ching Shih. 67.135.131.194 08:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

An interesting first hand account of being held captive by this particular fleet of pirates:

Author: Glasspoole, Richard, 1788-1846.

Title: Mr. Glasspoole and the Chinese pirates : being the narrative of Mr. Richard Glasspoole of the ship Marquis of Ely : describing his captivity of eleven weeks and three days whilst held for ransom by the villainous ladrones of the China Sea in the year 1809 : together with extracts from the China records and the log of the Marquis of Ely : and some remarks on Chinese pirates ancient and modern / by Owen Rutter ; and four engravings on wood by Robert Gibbings.

Publication Information: [London]: Golden Cockerel Press, 1935. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.227.187.143 (talk) 15:04, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Hey the article says that she was a prostitute; however, I've heard someone dispute this claim, anybody know anything about that? I've traced the source of the information back as far as I can decipher, but the 4th citation on this page is rather confusing https://www.jstor.org/stable/41298765?mag=cheng-i-sao-female-pirate&seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents

Hey, I have found that she was indeed a prostitute even though different source seem to be conflicted on this topic ^[1] Typaige (talk) 21:51, 4 May 2020 (UTC)TyrusPaige

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Denimadept (talk • contribs) 19:16, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Just curious, is it allowed to add the complete text of a copyrighted article on CNN to the entry? I didn't think it was. PMaranci 19:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it for sure isn't allowed. Only text in the public domain or licensed under the GFDL is allowed. Garion96 (talk) 20:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

How can Borges, a man famous for blurring the line between fact and fiction, be trusted as a reliable reference? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kavrod (talk • contribs) 11:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

He's a reliable reference to his own "semi-fictionalized" work. That's all the citation seems to be for. -- Yamara ✉ 22:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I can see that the Gosse book does exist . I was just worried he made up the provenance. Kavrod (talk) 09:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no fear of copyright violation for the 1836 engraving(?) posted on the article, but does anyone have more information as to where it comes from? That source might have more textual information, too, as it would have been published in her lifetime. -- Yamara ✉ 22:20, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

1785-1844 means she was 59 when she died. But the source says clearly: 69. Was the age miscalculated or is the year of her birth unknown and was wrongly calculated back as 1785, while it should be 1775?

BTW: In 1801 she worked as a prostitute and married the pirate leader in the same year. Was she 16 or rather 26 then?

Fon (talk) 23:50, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

The article states that she even couldn´t be defeated by the British. Could someone please clarify how much effort they put into that? Furthermore, who is "the British" in this context, the Royal Navy, the East India Company? To me it seems extremely unlikely that repeated rogue attacks on HM´s ships basically were left unanswered by the Admiralty, considering the great political influence of the Company etc. Thanks. --Tallyho (talk) 12:58, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

This seems very unplausible and the source is a child's school project so I removed the claim. If true, this needs a better source.Dan Conlin (talk) 02:28, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I can find no record via Google of these sources even existing. I'm actively trying and can find absolutely nothing other than this article, things quoting this article, and one book about pirate trivia. I have an inkling that these sources do not, in fact, actually exist, and that the items citing them and only them should be removed. --2601:300:4100:E650:5CB4:C044:93D5:BCD4 (talk) 05:32, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I have a feeling that the titles may not be written correctly. Did you make a search with just keywords, like the author names and "ladrones"? I found a few matches with that, but I have not had time to verify if they can be considered real. --Mlewan (talk) 13:11, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello everyone,

I am translating this page to Dutch but I don't understand the following sentence.

"Second, no one was to steal from the public fund or any villagers that supplied the pirates.[13]"

What is the public fund?

Also the citation of this sentence is not clear.

Thanks for helping me out.

Greetings,

Wolfguy from the dutch wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolfguy~nlwiki (talk • contribs) 16:02, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Public fund means something like the "common plunder". It's explained more in the next paragraph. Clarinetguy097 (talk) 16:41, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

You have a lot of information and I don't know how you're going to format it for when you add it to the article, but make sure to keep your language neutral. I don't think you should use a CNN entry since it's not an entirely reliable source. You should definitely point out the inconsistency with her age at death and the calculations if its something that's historically misconstrued. All in all its a good from what I see.

Kiki5933 (talk) 19:03, 23 April 2020 (UTC)Kiara Johnson

Hey, I have found that she was indeed a prostitute even though different source seem to be conflicted on this topic ^[1] Typaige (talk) 21:51, 4 May 2020 (UTC)TyrusPaige Typaige (talk) 21:57, 4 May 2020 (UTC) TyrusPaige

In all the sources I've read, Cheung Po was Cheng Shih's 義子 which is "adoptive son/ godson" not step-son. I take it that it was Cheng I swore a father/son relationship to Cheung Po as it makes sense for the contemporary culture, for a leader to take up-and-coming leaders into "the family". But it's not "adoption" in the contemporary sense. And I really have no idea where did the "step-son" designation came from...

Kschang77 (talk) 18:42, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Considering 鄭氏's extensive Cantonese background, why exactly is her name rendered in Mandarin (Ching Shih) as opposed to Cantonese (Sek Cheung)? In Qing records, she might have been known by her Mandarin name, but within her own circles and in those of non-Chinese speaking forces (the Dutch and Portuguese), she must have been referred to mainly by her Cantonese name, right? Wouldn't the same also be true of her birth name (Si Zeng as opposed to Shih Yang)? Her stepson, Cheung Po Tsai has his name rendered in Cantonese. - Esmost ^talk 07:23, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

In Qing records, her name is recorded as 石氏, Surname Shi, in accord with her birth name, Shi Yang. The name 郑氏 is already a shoddy Chinese translation from a shoddy English translation, which was then popularized in the west. A more apt title of her article, or indeed her proper name in history, should be 郑一嫂. Gaiushe (talk) 06:37, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi all, I have revised large sections of the article which were shoddily written with no reliable sources. The revised sections are - intro, early life, marriage to Zheng Yi, and ascension to leadership. Let me know comments, questions, etc. I am still new to wiki edit so please correct any syntax mistake you see. I will revise more section of the article pending availability. In terms of sources, I've been in contact with Professor Dian Murray who is considered to be the preeminent scholar on this subject. Gaiushe (talk) 06:41, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

The article now says better known internationally as Ching Shih. That is a confirmation of WP:COMMONNAME, therefore per that policy the page should have remained at Ching Shih. --John B123 (talk) 16:08, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Apologies for being unclear in my edit. All the references I've used, Chinese and English, ancient and modern academia, all used either her birth name Shi Yang or simply Shi Shih, or Zheng Yi Sao / Cheng I Sao. I've not come across the name Ching Shih AT ALL during my research, which was extremely comprehensive. Even in later fictionalized accounts of her, such as in Borges' A Universal History of Infamy, the name was Madame Ching, or Widow Ching, never Ching Shih. I do not know who invented the name Ching Shih (probably the person who first created this article), but all the articles I've found which uses Ching Shih are online and from the looks of them, references the older version of this article. If you search for Zheng Yi Sao however, you can see that more and more recent, more serious articles employs that name, which indicates that the use of the name Ching Shih is not even close to universal, and is not accepted at all in serious academic circles. Gaiushe (talk) 11:45, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Looking further, there are many versions of this article in the different language versions of Wikipedia. All bar a couple of the versions that use a Latin alphabet are titled Ching Shih. However, as her husband's article is Zheng Yi (pirate), then Zheng Yi Sao is probably wore consistent. --John B123 (talk) 15:53, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi MD Whalen, and any others interested. I'm going to re-remove the extended section about The Flower Boat Girl novel. As you have a conflict of interest in this area, it's hard not to see it as promotional, even if your intentions are good. The book is still mentioned along with other literature on Zheng Yi Sao, so it's not as though reference to it will be totally removed. Let me know if you have any questions. Ganesha811 (talk) 02:16, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki pages for Cheung Po Tsai and the Battle for the Tigers Mouth seem heavily influenced by a single Portugese reference. Can those biographies be reconciled with this page? 174.72.24.34 (talk) 23:09, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Just after in the list of codes that actually originated from Zhang Bao it says that he instituted the rule that the finder of treasure only keeps 2/10.

It seems contradictory, was that one of Zheng Yi Sao's codes or was it one of Zhang Bao's? 71.200.253.81 (talk) 00:32, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

its a big deal and could have it's own page TheT.N.T.BOOM! (talk) 16:45, 16 January 2026 (UTC)