Dates

It's been several months that, once in a while, I think that the date I see on some modern building or in the food labels is a date I lived before, several years ago. Like this one from last week

The year 97!. Well, it is this year if we follow the (I don't really know how much) official calendar that begins in 1911, the year the ROC was founded, as I talked about the other day. I guess that it connects to the tradition of numbering the years since the beginning of the reign of the emperor.

Of course, there is the unavoidable mix of both systems, the "local" and the "universal" ones. It can look like a big mess, but it is not because the year starts also on January 1. If it did not, it would be very confusing. You only must remember to subtract 11 and that's all. It's funny, though, to try to remember what could I be doing 11 years ago.