Something Taiwan has in common with North Korea is that they both use the same calendar, though for different reasons.
Let’s assume you were born on January 1, 1990. In most of the world, your date of birth would be written as 1.1.90. In Taiwan it’s 1.1.79.
Everyone here appears to be 11 years older.
In most of the world it is the year 2026. But it is also the year 115 in Taiwan, and all official documents, such as our driving license and health cards have our date of birth according to this calendar. Someone born in ’80 is shown as having been born in 69. Someone born in in ’60 is identified as having been born in 49.
The reason is that history was reset in 1911, when the Qing Dynasty in China was overthrown. A new era began in China on January 1, 1912, when it became the Republic of China. As the remnants of that Republic retreated to Taiwan in 1949, after being defeated by Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communists, that new beginning remains in place here. Taiwan is, in effect, and at least officially, still living in China’s first republican dynasty.
The reason the calendar is the same in North Korea is different. There, a new era began with the birth of Kim Il-sung, which also happened to be in 1912. It’s just a coincidence.
But it’s not just the date that can be confusing in Taiwan. As in Japan and China, the way numbers are displayed is different too.
The numbering system is the same as in most of the rest of the world until you reach 10,000. Then it changes. People educated in Europe and the US are taught to think in multiples of 10. This means that the next major change after reaching 10,000 is 100,000 when another digit is added. The next change after that is at 1,000,000, when the seventh digit appears.
In much of Asia it’s different. The word for 10,000 in Chinese is wan. There is no word for 100,000, because 100,000 is 10 wan. A million is 100 wan. 100 million is wan wan – ten thousand ten thousands, which is also called a yi. When you reach one billion, there is another word – zhao.
That may seem simple enough, but it can be complicated in practice. It’s as if the commas in western numbers get moved and so what is written in Europe or the US as 15,000 becomes 1,5000 – one unit of 10,000 and five units of a thousand. A factory producing 330,000 cars would report an output of 33 wan.
Numbers also change when it comes to measurements. The smallest measure for length is a Fen, which is just over 3mm. A Chhun (with two ‘h’s) is around 3cm, and a Chi is just over 30cm. A Zhang is 3m. When it comes to area, measurements are generally derived from those in Japan, which controlled the island for more than 50 years, though the origins of this system actually go back more than 1,300 years to the Tang Dynasty in China. A ping is around 3.3 square metres, which is the space taken by two Japanese tatami mats, which are what traditionally cover the floor.
So you might see an advert for an apartment to rent which says it is 20 ping in size and costs 4 wan – that’s around 66 sq.m for 1,200 euros a month. Once you have been in Taiwan for a while and can work it out, it makes sense. But when you see the advert for the first time, it makes little sense.
Other measures of area include the jia, which is just less than a hectare, and is derived from the Dutch colonial measurement system. Taiwan was briefly a Dutch colony in the mid-17th century. Yet another unit of area, the Li, is derived from the Ming dynasty, and the Kingdom on Tungning, which ruled a small part of the island for just over 20 years in the late 1600s, after the Dutch were overthrown.
The tael of the catty
When it comes to weight, the most commonly used measures are also derived from those in Japan, though some are also from China, such as tael and catty. But a catty in Taiwan is not the same as a catty in China, which is smaller. But that also depends on when you are talking about. A catty in China in 1915 is not the same as a catty in China in 1930 either.
So when we go the market and buy Chinese apples or Taiwanese plums (they are not the same as western apples and plums either) we order them by the jin, which is equal to 600g in Taiwan, or the gong jin, which is a metric kilo. When we buy Taiwanese tea, we order it by the tael, which is around 38g here, and is again different from a Chinese tael, depending on when it is in history that you mean.
Adding to the confusion is the fact that many of these words also change, depending on who you are speaking to. Most people in Taiwan speak Mandarin as well as a Chinese dialect which is very similar to that used in Fukien, in China. It is known as Taiwanese Hokkien, Minnan, or Hoklo. This is good to know when you make a trip to IKEA, where the printed guides to help you furnish an apartment are shown in pe. This is the Taiwanese language equivalent of a ping.
Thankfully there are many places where international weights and measures are used, such as on the roads, where distances are in kilometres. International measures can be confusing too though. When goods are imported from the US, the weight is shown in ounces, and often metric grammes as well. Finally, there is the complication of dividing some measures into smaller parts. The Taiwanese standard is sometimes to use 16ths and sometimes 10ths.
All this means that it is not just the calendar that has aged us by 11 years. Having to work through the maze that is numbers has made us feel much older too.