![ThoughtToBeTael-tkb22516](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/ThoughtToBeTael-tkb22516.jpg)
Tael (),
["Tael" entry]
at the OED Online
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...
. also known as the tahil and by
other names
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack
* ''The Other'' (1930 film), ...
, can refer to any one of several
weight
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity.
Some standard textbooks define weight as a Euclidean vector, vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weigh ...
measures
Measure may refer to:
* Measurement, the assignment of a number to a characteristic of an object or event
Law
* Ballot measure, proposed legislation in the United States
* Church of England Measure, legislation of the Church of England
* Measu ...
used in
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...
and
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
. It usually refers to the
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
tael, a part of the
Chinese system of weights and
currency
A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins.
A more general def ...
. The Chinese tael was standardized to 50 grams in 1959.
In
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
and
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, it is equivalent to 10
mace () or
catty
The catty, kati or , pronounced as jin in Mandarin and gan in Cantonese, is a traditional Chinese unit of mass used across East and Southeast Asia, notably for weighing food and other groceries in some wet markets, street markets, and shops ...
,
albeit with slightly different metric equivalents in these two places. These
Chinese units of measurement
Chinese units of measurement, known in Chinese as the ''shìzhì'' ("market system"), are the traditional units of measurement of the Han Chinese. Although Chinese numerals have been decimal (base-10) since the Shang dynasty, Shang, several Chine ...
are usually used in
Chinese herbal medicine stores as well as gold and silver exchange.
Names
The English word ''tael'' comes through
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
from the
Malay
Malay may refer to:
Languages
* Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore
** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century
** Indonesi ...
word , meaning "weight". Early English forms of the name such as "tay" or "taes" derive from the Portuguese plural of tael, .
Tahil ( in
Singaporean English
Singapore English (SgE, SE, en-SG) (similar and related to British English) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Singapore. In Singapore, English is spoken in two main forms: Singaporean Standard English (indistinguisha ...
) is used in Malay ''and'' English today when referring to the weight in
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
,
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, and
Brunei
Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...
, where it is still used in some contexts especially related to the significant
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese.
Terminology
() or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...
population.
In Chinese, tael is written (simplified as ) and has the
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
pronunciation ''liǎng''. The phrase "half a catty, eight taels" , ''bàn jīn, bā liǎng'') is still used to mean two options are exactly equivalent, similar to the English "six of one, half-dozen of the other".
Historical usage
![後藤分銅1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/%E5%BE%8C%E8%97%A4%E5%88%86%E9%8A%851.jpg)
In China, there were many different weighting standards of tael depending on the region or type of trade. In general the
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
tael weighed around . The most common government measure was the ''Kuping'' () tael, weighing . A common commercial weight, the ''Caoping'' () tael weighed of marginally less pure silver.
As in China,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
and
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
used the tael (
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
: 両;
Hepburn: ''ryō''; ) as both a unit of weight and, by extension, a currency.
Tael currency
Imperial China
Traditional Chinese silver
sycees and other currencies of fine metals were not denominated or made by a central
mint
MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaA ...
and their value was determined by their weight in taels. They were made by individual silversmiths for local exchange, and as such the shape and amount of extra detail on each ingot were highly variable; square and oval shapes were common but "boat", flower, tortoise and others are known. The tael was still used in
Qing dynasty coinage
Qing dynasty coinage (; Manchu: ; Möllendorff: ''Daicing jiha'') was based on a bimetallic standard of copper and silver coinage. The Manchu-led Qing dynasty was established in 1636 and ruled over China proper from 1644 until it was overthrow ...
as the basis of the silver currency and sycee remained in use until the end of the dynasty in 1911. Common weights were 50, 10, 5 and one tael. Before the year 1840 the government of the
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
had set the official exchange rate between silver
sycees and copper-alloy
cash coins
In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins.
In bookkeeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-immed ...
was set at 1,000 ''
wén'' for 1 tael of silver before 1820, but after the year 1840 this official exchange rate was double to 2,000 ''wén'' to 1 tael.
During the reign of the
Xianfeng Emperor
The Xianfeng Emperor (17 July 1831 – 22 August 1861), or by temple name Emperor Wenzong of Qing (), given name Yizhu (), was the eighth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the seventh Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigned from 1850 t ...
, the government of the Qing dynasty was forced to re-introduce
paper money
A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand.
Banknotes were originally issued ...
, among the paper money it produced were the
Hubu Guanpiao
The Hubu Guanpiao (Traditional Chinese: 戶部官票, "Ministry of Revenue Government notes") is the name of two series of banknotes produced by the Qing dynasty, the first series was known as the ''Chaoguan'' (鈔官) and was introduced under th ...
(戶部官票) silver notes that were denominated in taels.
The forced opening of China during the Qing dynasty created a number of
treaty port
Treaty ports (; ja, 条約港) were the port cities in China and Japan that were opened to foreign trade mainly by the unequal treaties forced upon them by Western powers, as well as cities in Korea opened up similarly by the Japanese Empire.
...
s alongside the China's main waterways and its coastal areas, these treaty ports would fundamentally change both the
monetary system of China as well as its
banking system
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
Becaus ...
, these changes were introduced by the establishment of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an and
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
merchant houses and later banks that would engage in the Chinese money exchange and trade finance.
Between the years 1840 and 1900, 1 market tael was worth 1.38
Spanish dollar
The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight ( es, Real de a ocho, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content ...
s.
Various Western banking companies, the largest of which were the
HSBC
HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tri ...
, and later
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
banking companies started to begin to accept deposits. They would issue banknotes which were convertible into silver; these banknotes were popularized among the Chinese public that resided in the treaty ports.
An important development during this era was the establishment of the
Imperial Maritime Customs Service
The Chinese Maritime Customs Service was a Chinese governmental tax collection agency and information service from its founding in 1854 until it split in 1949 into services operating in the Republic of China on Taiwan, and in the People's Republ ...
. This agency was placed in charge of collecting transit taxes for traded goods that were shipped both in and out of the Chinese Empire, these rules and regulations were all stipulated in various trade treaties that were imposed on the Qing by the Western colonial powers.
Because these changes were implemented during the height of the
Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It lasted fr ...
, the Western powers had managed to take over the complete administration of the Qing's maritime customs from the imperial Chinese governmental bureaucracy.
The Imperial Maritime Customs Service developed the Haikwan tael (海關兩), this new form of measurement was an abstract unit of silver tael that would become the nationwide standard unit of account in silver for any form of Customs tax.
The Haikwan tael was preferred over the Kuping tael (庫平兩) by many merchants across China, this was because the units of the Kuping tael varied often to the advantage of imperial tax collectors, this form of corruption was an extra source of income for government bureaucrats at the expense of traders.
The Haikwan tael unit was completely uniform, it was very carefully defined, and its creation had been negotiated among the various colonial powers and the government of the Qing dynasty.
The Haikwan tael was on average 5% to 10% larger than the various local tael units that had existed in China, this was done as it deliberately excluded any form of extra surcharges which were embedded in the other units of the silver tael that existed as a form of intermediary income for local government tax collection, these surcharges were added to local taels as a form of corruption and these taxes never reached the imperial government under the traditional fiscal regime.
Near the end of the Qing dynasty, one (sycee, or ) is about 50 taels.
Conversion rates in imperial China
The local tael took precedence over any central measure. Thus, the
Canton tael weighed , the Convention or
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
tael was , and the ''Haiguan'' () tael . The conversion rates between various common taels were well known.
Republic of China
In the year 1933 the government of the
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
abolished the tael and completely replaced it with the
yuan in a process known as the ''fei liang gai yuan'' (廢兩改元; literally: "Abolishing tael and changing to yuan"). During this time the
Republican government
Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represe ...
cleared all banknotes denominated in the ancient tael currency, making all bills which used this currency unit obsolete.
Purchasing power
Modern studies suggest that, on
purchasing power parity
Purchasing power parity (PPP) is the measurement of prices in different countries that uses the prices of specific goods to compare the absolute purchasing power of the countries' currency, currencies. PPP is effectively the ratio of the price of ...
basis, one tael of silver was worth about 4,130
RMB
The renminbi (; symbol: ¥; ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China and one of the world's most traded currencies, ranking as the fifth most traded currency in the world as of April 2022. ...
(modern Chinese yuan) in the early
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
, 2,065 RMB in the late
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
, and 660.8 RMB in the mid
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
. Today the price of silver is about 154 RMB/tael.
Thailand
The
Thai
Thai or THAI may refer to:
* Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia
** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand
** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand
*** Thai script
*** Thai (Unicode block ...
equivalent of the tael is known as the ''
tamlueng'', a term derived from
Khmer. It was used as a unit of currency equal to four
baht
The baht (; th, บาท, ; sign: ฿; code: THB) is the official currency of Thailand. It is divided into 100 ''satang'' (, ). The issuance of currency is the responsibility of the Bank of Thailand. SWIFT ranked the Thai baht as the 10th-m ...
; nowadays, as a unit of weight it is fixed at 60 grams.
Current usage
The tael is still in use as a weight measurement in a number of countries though usually only in limited contexts. In English-speaking countries, measurement scales that support Tael as a unit will typically abbreviate it as "tl".
Ethnic Chinese regions
Chinese mainland
China's standard ''market tael'' () of 31.25 g was modified by the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in 1959. The new market tael was 50 g or catty (500 g) to make it compatible with
metric
Metric or metrical may refer to:
* Metric system, an internationally adopted decimal system of measurement
* An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement
Mathematics
In mathem ...
measures. (see
Chinese unit
Chinese units of measurement, known in Chinese as the ''shìzhì'' ("market system"), are the traditional units of measurement of the Han Chinese. Although Chinese numerals have been decimal (base-10) since the Shang, several Chinese measures use ...
for details.) In Shanghai, silver is still traded in taels.
Some foodstuffs in China are sold in units also called "taels", but which do not necessarily weigh one tael. For cooked rice, the weight of the tael is approximated using special tael-sized ladles. Other items sold in taels include the
shengjian mantou
Shengjian mantou (Wu Chinese: ssanji mhoedhou), shengjian bao, or shengjian for short, is a type of small, pan-fried ''baozi'' (Steaming, steamed buns) which is a specialty of Suzhou and Shanghai. It is typically filled with pork and gelatin tha ...
and the
xiaolongbao
''Xiaolongbao'' () refers to a type of small Chinese steamed bun (''baozi'') traditionally prepared in a ''xiaolong'', a small bamboo steaming basket, hence the name. '' Xiaolongbao'' are often referred to as a kind of "dumpling", but should not ...
, both small
buns
A bun is a type of bread roll, typically filled with savory fillings (for example hamburger). A bun may also refer to a sweet cake in certain parts of the world. Though they come in many shapes and sizes, buns are most commonly round, and are g ...
commonly found in Shanghai. In these cases, one tael is traditionally four and eight buns respectively.
Hong Kong and Singapore
The tael is a legal weight measure in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
, and is still in active use.
In Hong Kong, one tael is 37.799364167 g,
and in ordinance 22 of 1884 is
oz. avoir. Similar to Hong Kong, in Singapore, one tael is defined as ounce and is approximated as 37.7994 g
Taiwan
The Taiwan tael is 37.5 g and is still used in some contexts. The Taiwan tael is derived from the tael or of the
Japanese system (equal to 10 ''momme'') which was 37.5 g. Although the
catty
The catty, kati or , pronounced as jin in Mandarin and gan in Cantonese, is a traditional Chinese unit of mass used across East and Southeast Asia, notably for weighing food and other groceries in some wet markets, street markets, and shops ...
(equal to 16 taels) is still frequently used in Taiwan, the tael is only used for precious metals and herbal medicines.
Elsewhere
Vietnam
![Gold_lang_Tu_Duc_CdM](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Gold_lang_Tu_Duc_CdM.jpg)
In
French Indochina
French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
, the colonial administration fixed the tael ''()'' as 100 g, which is commonly used at food markets where many items typically weigh in the 100–900 g range. However, a different tael (called , , or ) unit of 37.5 g is used for domestic transactions in gold. Real estate prices are often quoted in taels of gold rather than the local currency over concerns over
monetary inflation
Monetary inflation is a sustained increase in the money supply of a country (or currency area). Depending on many factors, especially public expectations, the fundamental state and development of the economy, and the transmission mechanism, it ...
.
See also
*
History of Chinese currency
The history of Chinese currency spans more than 3000 years. Currency of some type has been used in China since the Neolithic age which can be traced back to between 3000 and 4500 years ago. Cowry shells are believed to have been the earliest ...
*
Economic history of China
The economic history of China is covered in the following articles:
* Economic history of China before 1912, the economic history of China during the ancient China and imperial China, before the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912.
** ...
References
External links
*
{{Chinese currency and coinage
Currencies of China
Modern obsolete currencies
Units of mass
Chinese units in Hong Kong