Above: Chinese inches (upper tape) vs Imperial inches (lower tape).
My life in Kuching is somewhat lacking in excitement. I go to the gym and run errands in the form of mainly grocery shopping. While the swimming pools have just been allowed to open, they haven’t sorted out their Covid-19 controls yet. Not sure if they will … an Olympic-sized pool is only allowed to take 15 swimmers and alternate lanes are to be kept free. Hhhmmm … easier just to keep the place shut.
So, to make up for the lack of excitement, I decided to do a spot of online shopping. I had to measure up first and had bought a measuring tape from the cheap-and-nasty shop.
I measured my waist and it turned out to be 27 inches. Wow, I’ve lost weight! I’m eating less here but also exercising less. But could I have lost 7 inches?
Flipping the measuring tape across, my waist in centimetres was as expected. Hhmmm, back to the inches side things looked a little fishy. One inch was nearly 3.5cm instead of the 2.54cm I had expected.
I WhatsApp’ed a picture of the tape to a Malaysian friend who could read Chinese and he confirmed that the character on the tape was “Cun” or “Inches”. Further investigation showed that the tape was in Chinese Inches. It was a unit of measurement not known to my friends who could read Chinese or even my Mum who had a career in dress-making.
Wikipedia explained that this unit is 3.333 cm in China and Taiwan, 3.715 cm in Hong Kong or 3.030 cm in Japan. I guess this makes sense. We grew up with Asian weights called the “Kati” made up of sixteen “Tahils” and it was slightly heavier than pounds and ounces.
I need to befriend some tailors in time for April Fool’s Day and put swap out their measuring tape. Everything they make will end up too small!