[Opinion] Metric System and Bureaucracy

The modern weighing and measuring system was introduced to Korea in 1902 when Pyeongshikwon, the Bureau of Weights and Measures of the Joseon Dynasty, was established under the wing of Gungnaebu, the Bureau of Administration of the Joseon Dynasty. In 1905, the first act of the Korean Empire (Daehan Jeguk) ordered the Cheokgwan system, the traditional measurement, to be used together with the metric, yard, and pound systems as a measuring standard. It was prescribed in Cheokgwan Act that ja or cheok, the Korean foot, be officially converted into 0.303 meters, and gwan, the Korean unit of weight, into 3.75 kilograms.

Each country has its own traditional measurement system such as length, weight, space, and volume depending on its cultural and historical background. To name a few, the Cheokgwan system which was invented by China, the metric system by the Paris Science Academy of France in 1790, and the yard and pound system prevalent in England and the U.S. are good examples of traditional measuring systems. The International Metric Convention which was signed in 1875 served as a momentum to adopt the metric system across the world. Although Britain and the U.S also adopted the metric system, it was hard to establish new standard units since their traditional measurements including inch, mile, yard, pound, and gallon were commonly used and still are today.

The metric system is known as the most scientific. One meter was standardized by 1/40 millionth of the length of the meridian line. But it became even more accurate by revising the standard unit into the length that the light extracted from an iodine-stabilized helium neon laser in a vacuum proceeds for 1/299792458 of a second. Its error tolerance is only 0.00000002mm. The origin of the measure of length was the different body size of human beings. Feet mean the length of a foot. An inch was equivalent to the length of the first knuckle of thumb, while a yard is the length from nose to the finger-tip.

The Measurement Bill enacted in 1961 in Korea was designed to be applied in the field of commerce and attestation. But a whopping 88 percent of real estate agencies in Korea use pyeong instead of one square meter. Seventy-one percent of jewelers use don, which is the equivalent of 3.75 g. Restaurants use inbun, equivalent to a portion, to weigh meat. The government has decided to impose a fine which will take effect in July 2007 if written sales contracts and apartment advertisement do not use the metric system. One may wonder, although the rule has to be the rule if necessary, whether almighty bureaucracy is at play in this idea to punish even the old general practice which has long been part of life and culture.

Gwon Sun-taek, Editorial writer, maypole@donga.com