The Chinese Inch

   Both of these measuring tapes look harmless, right?! The yellow one belongs to Ewgenia, my colleague, and the white one is what I received when I asked the receptionist at work for my own measuring tape. You see, I have to measure lots of garments as part of my job (both here in Shanghai and in Portland). This all happened last Wednesday when I received a prototype from one of our factories. I needed to measurement the garment to make sure it came within our specifications so I asked Ewgenia if I could borrow her tape measure, well part way through the garment I had remember hearing that our receptionist was ordering more measuring tapes so I thought that I would go find out if they had arrived. Sure enough, they had and I received one to keep at me desk. Well, I got back to measuring my garment but with my new measuring tape. I started with the chest of the garment which I had already measured previously but thought it was a good spot to just double check. The measurement that I got previously was 46" but now when I was measuring I was getting 42"...how could I be off by 4"? It's not possible. Then I took a closer look...

Somethings wrong with this picture

   What the heck? I got a defective measuring tape! Actually, I asked around and found out that what I was looking at was the Chinese Inch. I think it should be outlawed....really, how confusing to have 2 different units of measure called the same thing? I hadn't even heard of the Chinese Inch before. I also found out that getting a measuring tape with the American Inch is kind of difficult and that our receptionist would not be able to find one and that she probably has no idea of the mistake with the measuring tapes that she did order. So, I kept the Chinese Inch measuring tape. It sits on my desk unused, taunting me daily but I just don't have the heart to give it back to the receptionist b/c she seemed so happy to be able to provide it to me (most of my requests to her she can't fulfill or she doesn't understand me).

Here are some Chinese Inch facts:
1. 1 metre is equal to 30 Chinese Inches


2. 1 Chinese Inch is equal to 0.762 American inches


3. It's symbol in Chinese: 英寸


4. It's pinyin: yīng cùn


History:
   The cun (Chinese: 寸; pinyin: cùn; Wade-Giles: ts'un) is a traditional Chinese unit of length. Its traditional measure is the width of a person's thumb at the knuckle, whereas the width of the two forefingers denotes 1.5 cun and the width of all fingers side-by-side is three cuns. In this sense it continues to be used to chart acupuncture points on the human body in various uses of traditional Chinese medicine.

   The cun was part of a larger system, and represented one-tenth of a chi (Chinese foot). In time the lengths were standardized, and in Hong Kong, using the traditional standard, it measures ~3.715 cm (~1.463 in). In the twentieth century in the Republic of China, the lengths were standardized to fit with the metric system, and in current usage in China and Taiwan it measures 3 1/3 cm (~1.312 in)

Hope someone enjoyed this math lesson (Chris!)