By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
Ordinary citizens as well as corporate and government offices in South Korea will be banned from using such traditional weights and measures as ``don,’’ ``geun’’ and ``pyeong’’ and should instead adopt the metric system in their business activities and daily lives from July 1.
Officials from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said on Friday that they would begin supervision of public institutions and large enterprises from next month for the ``soft landing’’ of the new measurement system.
Under the revised measurement law, the size of land, apartment houses and other structures should be displayed in square meters instead of pyeong and the weight of noble metals such as gold and silver as well as grain and meat should be presented in grams or kilograms instead of don and geun.
Many South Koreans, who have used their own traditional measurements for a long time before and even after the introduction of the modern metric system in the mid-20th century, still feel familiar and comfortable with such units as don, geun and pyeong.
Construction firms, for example, have so far sold their apartment houses in such size categories as 18 pyeong, 24 pyeong and 35 pyeong. One pyeong equals about 3.3 square meters, which has been regarded as a minimum size of space where an adult could lie at full length.
Butchers have also sold meat by geun (1 geun equals roughly 600 grams) and jewelers have used don (1 don equals 3.75 grams) to measure the weight of gold and silver.
Some construction companies, however, have recently employed several alternative ways such as ``18 Type’’ to stay close to consumers, who are still familiar with pyeong, while artfully shunning the new system.
Even department stores selling electronic home appliances such as air-conditioner also followed the suit quickly, putting labels such as ``For 24 Type’’ on the products. Television sets are also displayed as ``40 Hyeong (Type)’’ instead of 40 inches.
``Some say they have adopted new units such as `XX Type’ or `XX Hyeong’ in an effort to reduce possible confusion among consumers,’’ a ministry official said. ``But this is an odd and unprecedented way of measurement. We wouldn’t allow any units except for those in the metric system.’’
He said that parallel notation of the traditional and metric systems would not be allowed either. But, he added, such notification that ``Houses of 100 square meters roughly match the previous 30-pyeong houses’’ would be allowed at the bottom of the brochures or posters.
``Our supervision in the initial stage is largely aimed at having the new system take root in society,’’ the official said. ``So we will focus on public organizations and large business conglomerates first for the soft landing of the policy.’’
Those violating the new law would be first given warning but could face fines of up to 500,000 won ($539) if they fail to correct the mistakes within a month, according to the ministry.