What year is it?

So, a couple of weeks ago, an old man came out of his apartment as I was walking downstairs and stopped me.  He put his hand on my shoulder and explained (in Chinese) that his two kids were in school studying English and wondered where I was from.  I told him I was American and that if his kids wanted to come chat with me here and there I would be happy to talk to them in English.  He was so overjoyed. 

So since then, Andy (9) and Sophie (13) have been coming to my apartment twice a week for an hour at a time.  We look through their textbooks (which are extraordinarily basic) and practice some sentences, colors, foods, etc.  Nothing special, really. 

So why the reason for this post? Because I asked Andy (in Chinese) what year he was born, and he kept saying 91.  "91?" I said, "would mean that you are 21 years old, buddy." Again, this all took place in Chinese, so I know he understood. "Jiu shi er" he said.  That is most definitely 91. 

Knowing that he is 9 years old, even a 9 year old could tell you that the year he was born must be 2002 or 2003 (depending on when his birthday is). 

I shrugged it off as just some sort of confusion either on my part or his, and we continued our lesson. Then, a few days later, I took some money out of an ATM.  When I looked at my receipt, I was very surprised to see this:

Ok, so let me first point out that the currency of Taiwan is the New Taiwan Dollar.  So for those of you in the US, I am not withdrawing 5,000 US dollars!  In fact, I'm withdrawing 5000 NTD, which is equal to about $160 USD.

But take a look at the date!  We can definitely figure out that my withdrawal took place on May 30.  But what's with the 101??!?!

I finally figured it out.  When it comes to the year, Taiwanese people don't always use the Gregorian calendar.  In many cases, they use the date of the founding of the Republic of China as their "beginning of time."  I find this to be very interesting, as it presents a constant reminder to the people of the importance of country.  Can you imagine if the in the US, we started measuring the year from 1776?  It's very interesting.

So when Andy was telling me he was born in 91, he didn't mean 1991.  What he meant was that he was born in the 91st year of the Republic of China.  Because RoC just celebrated its 101st anniversary this year, we can deduce that Andy will, in the next 6 months, celebrate his 10th birthday. 

Amazing!