Pinyin is the trend across all Chinese communities in the world, including Hong Kong and Taiwan...
I beg to differ. Taiwanase and Cantonese use a different kind of "Pinyin" than the one in use in PRC (Mainland China), where words and names are transcribed very differently. A couple examples:
重庆
PRC Pinyin: CQ as in ChongQing
Taiwanese: CK as in ChungKing
There's a well known market building in Tsim Sha Tsui here in HK, called Chungking Mansion. Been coming to HK for ages not realizing this was ChongQing Mansion until one day noticed the name written in Chinese characters. Obviously,
where Mainland Chinese names are concerned, the Cantonese in HK use the old, Chinese Nationalist style transcription, same as the Taiwanese.
中山
PRC Pinyin: ZS as in ZhongShan
Taiwanese: CS as in ChungSan
I used these examples as both are names of important cities in Mainland China, where the majority of the Chinese living there are unfamiliar with the old style transcription. Hence, you want to target 4L or 5L .com's starting with CQ and ZS and
not CK and CS (as far as these particular examples go). That is unless you want CS as in 长沙(ChangSha), the capital city of Hunan province. Offhand, can't think of any major city for CK...
As for the Cantonese dialect,
where Pinyin does not apply at all:
香港
Pinyin: XG as in XiangGang
Cantonese: HK as in Hong Kong
(Yes - the same 2 Chinese characters are pronounced and transcribed very differently in Putonghua/Mandarin and Cantonese; unsurprisingly, the English name's obviously based on the Cantonese version)
Hence, a 4L or 5L domain starting with HK might be of interest to a Cantonese... or a Mainland Chinese interested in 海口 (HaiKou), the capital city of HaiNan province
Disclaimer: I've used simplified character notation and refrained from digressing into the 2 different Chinese "alphabets", as it were, as this is not pertinent to Pinyin transcription and short codes.
