At 2:27 PM -0700 10/20/98, Jurai-Knight wrote:

Hello all,

I was finishing up Quantum Destinies chapter 13 when I ran into a little
snag.  What are the units of measurement that were used for distance and
weight in China and Japan before they adopted the Metric system?

I tried searching the Web, but I didn't have much luck.

Jurai Knight

The things you learn when you're stuck trying to learn kanji with a half
dozen books and a dictionary. Ah, yes, Japanese measurements...

There is the

ri (written as a rice field over the ground, how fitting) which my main
book says is 4 km (2.5 miles) although my kanji dictionary says it's 3.9 km

bu (this one's an umbrella over a sword) it'a a unit of length 3.03 cm.
sun (dunno how to say what it is in drawings...) says it's also 3.03 cm.

fun (written the same as bu) which is a weight of about 375 mg

shaku (as in shakuhachi) which is a length of 30.3 cm

bu (stop over few) which is 3.3 m2

koku (also a stone) 0.18 mL

Well, those are all I know. They ARE in dictionaries, but my main BOOK says
they aren't used much anymore, so I suppose that they'd be pre-metric.

Did you know I like the lady on the second floor?
Mmm, cherries...

If that didn't make sense to you, that's just because you don't have
chemistry with me. The prof gives us Japanese word games in class. Yay,
chemistry, my favorite class!