Funnily, I am the Turk in this conversation. I asked because I just found it weird. Not questioning anyone's entitlement^^

The real answer: I try to primarily type with my keyboard set to Turkish, which means autocorrect always changes this to the native spelling.

No, the native spelling is 北京. Beijing and Peking are two different foreign spellings.

The commenter who called it Türkiye claims to be from the USA in his or her bio.

Beijing is the transliteration preferred by Chinese authorities [1], not just “a foreign spelling”.

[1] https://www.economist.com/johnson/2010/11/11/beijing-or-peki...

Okay. Regardless, it is the commonly accepted English spelling (whereas Peking is not), and is not used in Chinese (except in unusual situations). So comparing it to Türkiye vs Turkey makes no sense, which was my point.

It is the word the Chinese would like non-Chinese to use when talking about the city. It’s a classic example of modern cultural re-appropriation, because Peking was the widely-accepted transliteration - until attitudes (and power) changed and the Chinese asked the world to use Beijing instead. It wouldn’t be particularly far-fetched to imagine Turks might also ask the world, eventually, to use their own spelling to refer to the country - especially considering the unfortunate overlap of the word “turkey” in English.

> Peking was the widely-accepted transliteration - until attitudes (and power) changed and the Chinese asked the world to use Beijing instead.

An interesting exception is [Peking University](http://english.pku.edu.cn/) which elected (and was permitted) to retain its venerable Romanized style.

Still "Peking" in german.

Interesting, even the German newspapers still use Peking.

The shift to Beijing did happen in Dutch, without too much fuss. Peking is now only used for the duck recipe (Pekingeend).

Odd really, because Beijing is kind of unique in this aspect. For most capitals the Dutch name is consequently used (Berlijn/Parijs vs. Berlin/Paris).

Same in France, it's still "Pékin", I suspect Beijing will never take off since it's harder to pronounce.

You could spell it "Beijing" and keep pronouncing it "Pékin" :). I remember hearing "Bé-ying" and "Bé-jing" once on french radio/TV.

The original commenter's HN profile links to his LI account here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nomadicengineer/ . He states that he lives in Turkey currently, but spent a lot of time in the US. Most famously, the commenter was the only sysadmin for frickin' Napster! Wow! So, yeah, he's legit!

Mr. Halligan, how was Napster back in those days? Like, do you have a blog about that time period?

> Mr. Halligan, how was Napster back in those days? Like, do you have a blog about that time period?

I was the "only" sysadmin when I was at Napster (We had 2 people in desktop support/it, one of whom actually died a few years later. The guy I replaced, Stephen Fountain, was actually shot to death by police). We hired 2 more a week or two before I left. It was a shit-show that I prefer to forget. (I'm also not at all proud of my work there. I was an unprofessional, somewhat incompetent 19 year-old workaholic who worked 100 hours a week and did a half-assed job at everything, which in the end actually was a huge net-negative to the organization, and myself!)

Hrm, thinking through this more, one of those guys from IT, Ryan, a big-hearted (literally) lumberjack of a guy died of congestive heart failure. Then our CEO died on his bicycle a few years back, and there was also a suicide of one of the developers. It was a cursed company.

Oh Jesus! I'm sorry for your losses. I just lost a good friend before his time, as well. It's never easy and the hole just stays there.

Thank you for the VERY frank responses, I appreciate the effort and the time. As a follow-up question, do you think the 100 hour weeks had diminishing returns after what point, if at all? Also, how is the work-life balance in Turkey in general?

Again, my condolences on your losses.