50 YEARS AGO
Friday, April 1, 1966
Metric system goes into effect nationwide
Today the metric system will be enforced in all aspects of Japanese life.
The metric system was put into effect on Jan. 1, 1959, but a period of
grace was provided for its enforcement in the areas of real estate and
house building up to March 31 this year.
From 1959 on, the Japanese have been using the metric system for almost
all other things. A housewife today buys rice by the kilogram and soy
sauce by the liter.
Japan was first exposed to the metric system in 1891 when she acceded to
the International Convention on the Metric System of 1875. As of that
time, however, the metric system was made legal alongside the traditional
weights and measures known as the shakkan system (shaku for length and kan
for weight). With the introduction in 1909 of the British yard-pound
system, weights and measures came to be expressed in three different
systems in Japan, much to the complication of national life.
The coexistence of these systems had no serious consequence until World
War I, when the Army found some shells made to British specifications did
not fit their cannons, whose calibers were measured by the centimeter.
In 1921, the weights and measures law was revised to make the metric
system the only official one. But implementation of the new system was
postponed due to lack of adequate preparation in 1924 and 1934. In 1938 it
was postponed again because it was seen as being foreign and, therefore,
to be rejected.
Eventually, a 1951 law provided for implementation in 1959, with a period
of grace till March 1966 for land and buildings because of Japans unique
modular system of building. Here, every house is planned according to the
modules of shaku, ken and tsubo. A ken, the very basis of all other
modules, is the length of the Japanese tatami and all the sliding doors.
When building a house, a carpenter buys lumber which is also measured to
these standard sizes to minimize waste.
In spite of the law that goes into full force today, it seems unlikely
that tatami makers will alter their ways. Without shaku as units, they
feel, it would be impossible to make tatami.
www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/02/national/history/munitions-orders-grow-japan-soviet-union-sign-neutrality-treaty-metric-system-enforced-public-asked-accept-gulf-mission/#.Vwa0gzfn_Qx
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