| Tael | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 兩 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 两 | ||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Vietnamese | lượng, lạng | ||||||||||||||||||
| Hán-Nôm | 兩 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Korean name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Hangul | 량 (N)/냥 (S) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Hanja | 兩 | ||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| Mongolian name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mongolian Cyrillic | лан | ||||||||||||||||||
| Mongolian script | ᠯᠠᠨ | ||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Kanji | 両 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Hiragana | りょう(hist. りゃう) | ||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| Malay name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Malay | tahil / تهيل (Jawi) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Indonesian name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Indonesian | tahil | ||||||||||||||||||
| Manchu name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Manchu script | ᠶᠠᠨ | ||||||||||||||||||
| Möllendorff | yan | ||||||||||||||||||
| Khmer name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Khmer | តាល | ||||||||||||||||||
| Tangut name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Tangut | 𗍬 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Miyake transcription | 2lu3 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Buryat name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Buryat | лан | ||||||||||||||||||
Tael (/ˈteɪl/),[1] orliang, also known as thetahil and byother names, can refer to any one of severalweightmeasures used inEast andSoutheast Asia. It usually refers to theChinese tael, a part of theChinese system of weights andcurrency. The Chinese tael was standardized to 50 grams in 1959.
InHong Kong andSingapore, it is equivalent to 10mace (Chinese:錢; pinyin:qián) or1⁄16catty,[2][3] albeit with slightly different metric equivalents in these two places. TheseChinese units of measurement are usually used inChinese herbal medicine stores as well as gold and silver exchange.
The English wordtael comes throughPortuguese from theMalay wordtahil, meaning "weight". Early English forms of the name such as "tay" or "taes" derive from the Portuguese plural of tael,taeis.
Tahil (/ˈtɑːhɪl/ inSingaporean English)[4] is used in Malayand English today when referring to the weight inMalaysia,Singapore, andBrunei, where it is still used in some contexts especially related to the significantOverseas Chinese population.
In Chinese, tael is written兩 (simplified as两) and has theMandarin pronunciationliǎng. The phrase "half a catty, eight taels"(Chinese:半斤八兩,bàn jīn, bā liǎng) is still used to mean two options are exactly equivalent, similar to the English "six of one, half a dozen of the other".
In China, there were many different weighting standards of tael depending on the region or type of trade. In general thesilver tael weighed around 40 grams (1.3 ozt). The most common government measure was theKuping (庫平;kùpíng; 'treasury standard') tael, weighing 37.5 grams (1.21 ozt). A common commercial weight, theCaoping (漕平;cáopíng; 'canal shipping standard') tael weighed 36.7 grams (1.18 ozt) of marginally less pure silver.
As in China, other parts of East Asia such asJapan andKorea have also used the tael (Japanese:両; rōmaji:ryō; Korean:량/냥 (兩); romaja:nyang/ryang) as both a unit of weight and, by extension, a currency.
Traditional Chinese silversycees and other currencies of fine metals were not denominated or made by a centralmint 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 inQing dynasty coinage 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 theQing dynasty had set the official exchange rate between silversycees and copper-alloycash coins was set at 1,000wén for 1 tael of silver before 1820, but after the year 1840 this official exchange rate was double to 2,000wén to 1 tael.[5]
During the reign of theXianfeng Emperor, the government of the Qing dynasty was forced to re-introducepaper money, among the paper money it produced were theHubu Guanpiao (戶部官票) silver notes that were denominated in taels.[6][7]
The forced opening of China during the Qing dynasty created a number oftreaty ports alongside the China's main waterways and its coastal areas, these treaty ports would fundamentally change both themonetary system of China as well as itsbanking system, these changes were introduced by the establishment ofEuropean andAmerican merchant houses and later banks that would engage in the Chinese money exchange and trade finance.[8]
Between the years 1840 and 1900, 1 market tael was worth 1.38Spanish dollars.[5]
Various Western banking companies, the largest of which were theHSBC, and laterJapanese 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.[8]
An important development during this era was the establishment of theImperial Maritime Customs Service. 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.[8] Because these changes were implemented during the height of theTaiping Rebellion, the Western powers had managed to take over the complete administration of the Qing's maritime customs from the imperial Chinese governmental bureaucracy.[8]
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.[8] 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.[8] 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.[8] 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.[8]
Near the end of the Qing dynasty, onedìng (sycee, oryuanbao) is about 50 taels.[9]
The local tael took precedence over any central measure. Thus, theCanton tael weighed 37.5 grams (1.21 ozt), the Convention orShanghai tael was 33.9 grams (1.09 ozt), and theHaiguan (海關;hǎiguān; 'customs') tael 37.8 grams (1.22 ozt). The conversion rates between various common taels were well known.
In the year 1933 the government of theRepublic of China abolished the tael and completely replaced it with theyuan in a process known as thefei liang gai yuan (廢兩改元; 'Abolishing tael and changing to yuan'). During this time theRepublican government cleared all banknotes denominated in the ancient tael currency, making all bills which used this currency unit obsolete.[10]
Modern studies suggest that, onpurchasing power parity basis, one tael of silver was worth about 4,130 yuanRMB in the earlyTang dynasty, 2,065 yuan RMB in the lateTang dynasty, and 660.8 yuan RMB in the midMing dynasty.[citation needed] As of February 2024[update] the price of silver is about 254 yuan RMB/tael of 50 g.
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".
China's standardmarket tael (Chinese:市两; pinyin:shìliǎng) of 31.25 g was modified by thePeople's Republic of China in 1959. The new market tael was 50 g or1⁄10 catty (500 g) to make it compatible withmetric measures. (seeChinese unit 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 theshengjian mantou and thexiaolongbao, both smallbao buns commonly sold in Shanghai. In these cases, one tael is traditionally four and eight buns respectively.
The tael is a legal weight measure inHong Kong, and is still in active use.[2] In Hong Kong, one tael is 37.799364167 g,[2] and in ordinance 22 of 1884 is1+1⁄3oz. avoir. Similar to Hong Kong, in Singapore, one tael is defined as1+1⁄3 ounce and is approximated as 37.7994 g[3]
The Taiwan tael is 37.5 g and is still used in some contexts. The Taiwan tael is derived from the tael orryō (両) of theJapanese system (equal to 10momme) which was 37.5 g. Although thecatty (equal to 16 taels) is still frequently used in Taiwan, the tael is only used for precious metals and herbal medicines.[citation needed]
TheThai equivalent of the tael is known as thetamlueng, a term derived fromKhmer. It was used as a unit of currency equal to fourbaht; nowadays, as a unit of weight it is fixed at 60 grams.
InFrench Indochina, the colonial administration fixed the tael(lạng) 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 (calledcây,lạng, orlượng) 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 overmonetary inflation.[11]
The standard ingot of China weighs about 50 taels (from 49 to 54) and, formerly calledting鋌, is now calledpao寶 (jewel, article of value, as in the inscription on the copper cashtung-pao通寶 = "current coin") and more commonlyyuan-pao元
