Gō (unit)

Look up in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
One gō masu

The () is a traditional Japanese unit of area and volume. It expresses a tenth of a particular quantity.

As a unit expressing area, one is equivalent to a tenth of a bu or tsubo. This is approximately equal to 0.3306 .

As a unit expressing volume, one is equivalent to a tenth of a shō. This is approximately equal to 0.1809 liters.

Although it is no longer used officially, rice and sake are often measured in . For example, rice cookers come with a 1 (180 mL) measuring cup used to indicate the serving size for one person. As a rule of thumb, one is equivalent to about 150 grams of Japanese short grain rice. A is 1/1000 of a koku, the base unit which was historically defined as the amount of rice needed to feed one person for a year. It is a very old unit of measurement and recently there has been some attempts of revival which have met with success; several more things are now being measured in like traditional Japanese fish (especially the dangerous fugu) and several restaurants have re-instated it as part of a more traditional way of viewing the country's culture.

The Japanese is distinct from the Chinese unit , although both are written with the same character. The is also a unit of volume, but its size is a tenth of a peck, or roughly 0.881 liters.

References

  • Matsumura, Akira (1995). Daijirin 大辞林 (in Japanese). Tokyo: Sanseidō. ISBN 4-385-14009-X. 
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/4/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.