Metric in China

Units used in China are not the same as, say in the USA or other countries. Some common units are listed below. Although initially it might bother some expats in China, I can assure you after a while you'll get used to it :) For this issue, the tip for living in China (especially for those who like cooking): get a calculator or get some coversion unit tables from the web.


km (kilometer) is used to express distance instead of miles.  1 mile is roughly 1.6 km.
1 mile ~ 1.6 km   or   1 km ~ 0.625 mile

Example: a 10 km distance is about 6.25 miles.


For weather, cooking, etc, we use Celcius instead of Fahrenhait.
F= 9/5 C + 32

For example: 10C in Fahrenhait would be (9/5)*10 +32 = 50 F


For length, sometimes we use centimeter (cm), but sometimes we use our own unit chi.
1 inch=2.54 cm

For example: 2 inches= 2*2.54=5.08 cm

1 尺 (chǐ) ~ 30.48 cm When you go to clothing/clothes store, most sellers are using chǐ


If you go to buy fruit, vegetable, rice, etc, sellers are using jin.
1 jin (斤)   is about 1 pound 1斤~1.1lb


For smaller items such as  spices, say star anise, five spice, etc, the seller uses liang.

1jin~ 10 liang (两)

Other commonly used unit is Gram.

1 公斤 (gong jin or kg) = 1,000 克 (gram)

1 毫克 = 0.001 克 （1克=1000毫克） (毫 háo mili)


For volume, we use liter here. For example to buy gasoline
1 gallon ~ 2.78 liter

 升shēng is liter


Say you buy water (sewer), the unit is dun
1 吨 (dūn) = 1 ton = 1000 kg

Learn more from MasterChinese and learn Chinese online with us.

Youth Day in China

Youth Day in the China is on May 4 every year. It was established in December 1949 by the Government Administration Council to commemorate the beginning of the May Fourth Movement.
After World WarⅠ, U.S., Japan, U.K., Italy, France and some other countries held a "Peace Conference" in Paris in 1919. Chinese government of that time also sent some representatives for the conference, and demanded that the imperial countries should abandon their privilege in China. In May 1919, "Paris Conference" unfairly refused the reasonable request that China asked to abolish the unequal treat, and even decided to transfer the Germany's illegal privileges in Shandong Province to Japan.
When the news passed back to China, the whole country got angry. On May 4th, about 3,000 students from various universities in Beijing congregated at Tian'anmen Square and held a student protest parade for the first time in the history. The students shouted out some patriotic slogans and presented a petition to the state president, but suppressed by the warlord government of that time. This suppression made angrier the people all over the country. A great number of students, workers and businessmen went on strike, and the students' demonstration and parade finally developed into a national-scale anti-imperialistic and patriotic movement. On June 10th, the warlord government had to compromise, and deposed Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang, and Lu Zongyu who were regarded as committing a crime of quislingism. On June 28th, Chinese representatives at Paris Conference refused to sign the "Peace Treaty." This news passed throughout the world soon and the imperialistic countries were greatly shocked. So far, the direct goals brought forward in the movement were basically achieved.
May 4th Movement is a landmark event in Chinese history. It is not only a patriotic student movement, but also a new culture movement with the characteristic of democracy and science against feudal culture. It was due to the influence of May 4th Movement that science, democracy and the usage of modern Chinese language were greatly advocated later.