South Koreans Getting New Birthdays
A move away from a centuries old Asian practice.
NPR (“South Koreans are getting a year younger, parliament rules“):
South Koreans will soon become a year or two younger, following an official change to the country’s age-counting system.
On Thursday, the country’s parliament, called the National Assembly, passed a set of bills requiring the use of the international age-counting system, where age is based on birth date.
South Korea currently uses three age-counting systems, but most citizens abide by the “Korean age,” where a person is 1 year old as soon as they are born, and gain one year on every New Year’s Day. And a baby born on Dec. 31 would be considered 2 years old the next day.
The change will go into effect this coming June.
So technically, babies born from now until then could still go by the traditional “Korean age” system.
While a majority of South Koreans go by the “Korean age,” most seem to support the move to the more widely used system, where a person is zero on the day they are born and gain a year every birthday.
Joining the vast majority of the planet in doing this the sane way strikes me as a good idea. Indeed, this has been more an artifact than a daily practice:
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol had promised to unify the country’s age-counting systems on the campaign trail earlier this year, saying that they created “unnecessary social and economic costs.”
South Korea has been tallying age by birth dates since the 1960s.
But while most East Asian countries have scrapped the traditional age-counting system, some have yet to follow suit.
For example, in China, which uses the nominal age-counting system, a person is considered 1 year old on the day they are born, and they gain a year on the Lunar New Year.
Wikipedia has an entry for “East Asian age reckoning” but doesn’t explain its rationale, other than that “age was counted with ordinal numbers, not cardinal numbers; also, age was counted from the lunar new year, not from the date of birth.”
Says the guy from the country that still hasn’t gone metric….
A friend from grad school was from S. Korea. She said that a lot of government stuff already by birthday. I think they kept the Lunar New Year celebration because everyone could exchange gifts and treat it more like we do Christmas. And if I am remembering correctly, on their actual birthday, they would give small gifts to friends and family rather than getting gifts.
Funny story from Woosong University. The professor I was tutoring in English and I were born the same year. We were talking about it one day and I said that with the mandatory retirement age for university professors being 65,* we’d both be retiring in two years. He told me that my assumption wasn’t correct. Because he was born in January (before Lunar New Year), he would be required to retire before the new term started (in February) of that retirement year, but because I was born in July, I would be eligible to work until the end of the following year.
*65 at universities is still better than retirement at 50 at Samsung and other places, though.
Not exactly. China uses the traditional system in some places, but they very much celebrate their Gregorian and Lunar birthdays (following the western, and lunar calendars). They don’t celebrate being a year older on the Lunar New Year (that’s Spring Festival, and has it’s own celebrations). They do, however, celebrate their western and lunar birthdays, and say that they are a year older on which ever one they prefer.
I don’t think it really makes much difference except in International kids sports. The two different methods of counting caused some commotion and ill feeling when my kids were playing soccer in China, as some parents felt that kids were older than should be allowed in a given age bracket.
@BugManDan:
“My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that’s the way I likes it!”
@Kathy:
Perfect place for a link to one of my favorite comedy sketches:
The Frantics – Roman Numerals
@BugManDan: We’ve actually “gone metric” in most ways that matter—our scientific, governmental, and military systems have all been metric for decades. Hell, American bourbon has been sold in 750ml and 1.75 liter bottles for as long as I can remember [NYT says it happened in 1976]. It’s really just one-offs like speed limits, gasoline, and the like that are still on the Imperial system.
Most years I can’t instanly recall how old I am. This year and the next are super easy. In 2023 I will be an age divisible by 10.
But most years, if I were asked my age out of the blue and answer now, my brain would fumble around for a few seconds, do some quick math, before I could give you the correct number.
And even then, I might be off by a year. When I was 47 for some reason it got stuck in my head I was 48. Took me several months to realize that was wrong.
After a point it just no longer matters. It isn’t important, useful, or salient. No real need or purpose to stash it in instant recall memory.
Same deal with the way we measure time. I reckon days of the week correctly mostly, but the actual date of month is just immaterial to me. I can offer a decent guess. If you were to ask me what date of the month today is my response would be roughly December 10th plus or minus two days. [Looks it up, BRB, it is officially December 9 in my timezone.] Hey, not bad! Pretty close.
I live directly on a major thoroughfare. Close enough to hear the traffic even inside. Saturday sounds distinctly different than a weekday. 7:30 AM weekday sounds distinctly different than 1:30 PM. 98% of the time my brain filters out the traffic noise. I hear it, but it doesn’t register. That is unimportant and uninteresting so my brain just shuffles it off into the null space without me thinking about it.
At one point in my life I could rattle off pi to maybe 20 digits. Why? No clue. Today, I know pi is 3.14+. I cannot recall exactly what pi is useful for. I have never used pi in the real world ever. Calculating the diameter based on the length of the radius? Something like that. It has never come up in casual conversation or in applicable real world use for me. It is a thing I learned in math class and was useful in answering test questions for the remainder of that particular semester many decades ago. Since then, not helpful or useful even once.
What freaks me out the most is that I have forgotten large chunks of the simple single digit multiplication table. If you were to ask me what is 7 times 8 my brain would go “I know for certain 7×7=49. And that 49+7=56. 56! My answer is fifty six, Alex.”
I no longer have that answer top of brain instantly recallable. I have to fudge a bit and back into the answer. Am I dumber at 59 than I was at age 9?
Is it encroaching dementia / Alzheimer’s? That is my biggest fear by far, I am genetically prone and much more likely than your average person to go down that path. That is a bad path.
@James Joyner: While the things you list may or may not be all metric, the majority of the people in this country do not use with the metric system in any meaningful way. Weights are in oz/lbs, beers are in oz/pints. Non-scientists measure length in inches/feet. The only metric measurements that most Americans actually use (750ml of whiskey is still called a fifth every where I have lived) is the monetary system and military ammunition.
So while what matters to you may be metric and what matters to me may be metric, that is not true of most of our fellow citizens.
@de stijl: My wife keeps track of my age…
I am fine with the math maybe because I use it some for work and still have kids in school.
I forget movie titles, song titles, singers, actors etc. that I should never forget because at one time I was really into them. But I can never forget Katrina and the Wave “Walking on Sunshine” which I never had feelings about one way or the other.
@de stijl:
I tell people I stopped keeping track of my age when I runted 18, because once you’re an adult there’s no longer any point in bothering about it.
This is not entirely true, but I really don’t keep track. I had to write my age in the COVID vaccine form last year, and I had to calculate the years elapsed wince birth. I got it wrong by two years.
@BugManDan:
I wonder how many scientists who use metric units at work turn to Imperial ones outside of work. it’s rather inevitables, as items at the store, temps in the forecast, and distances in highway signs are all Imperial.
Fact is in everyday life there’s little difference. When I travel to the US, after a few days immersed in the irrational units, I kind of get used to it. then unused to it after I leave.
And you do see some influence of the iMperial system outside the US. Waze gives warnings of turns and hazards almost always at 800, 400, and 200 meters. That’s roughly half, one quarter, and one eighth of a mile. Some cooking oil imports come in bottles of 946 ml, rather than one liter. 946 ml. is one quart.
@Kathy: I definitely do, so much so that I maintain the 2 systems in my head almost completely separate and can’t convert between most measurements. Temperature being one exception. And if I just want a ballpark guess I go between feet (by way of yards) and meters in my head.
I’ve solved this problem by telling everyone I’m 27. I’ll be 27 every year until I drop dead, because I am a crazy person. My kids find this hilarious.
@Beth:
Some years back someone insisted on knowing my age. I was too tired, and uninterested, to do the mental math, but they simply wouldn’t let up.
So I said: Sixty!
Them: Wow! You look great!
@BugManDan:
Walking On Sunshine is a damn fine song.
Came on the radio one day at the perfect time. It was moving day and I was hauling the last carload of my crap from one shitty apartment to another shitty apartment. My cat, Mr. Dingo, was chilling in the front passenger seat watching the world whiz by out the window.
Singing along to that song it felt kinda like a fresh start.
Besides the senior coffee at MickeyD costing 99¢ (tax inc.) my most recent old man cost break was the $5 I just paid to renew my Illinois drivers license. Good to January of 2026 when I’ll be 78.
@de stijl: I have trouble remembering my age too, but that’s mostly because I’ve lived in Korea for nearly 30 years.
@de stijl:
My cat did not enjoy being outdoors at all. It freaked him the fuck out, but he loved traveling in a car – that was the coolest thing ever to him.
Going outside freaked him out. He would crouch down as low as he could get to the ground. Glance up, freak out, and try to scoot even lower down. He would look at me in a very accusatory manner.
“Dude, what is happening? I’m totally freaking out right now! Where the fuck is the ceiling?! Why is there no ceiling here? There is no goddamn ceiling in this place and the floor is completely fucked up! Where are the walls? What is this spiky green stuff?”
He was not a happy cat outdoors. At all.
However, he loved riding in a car. He thought rolling around in a car was, by far, the coolest thing he had ever experienced. He was enthralled, fascinated. He got the concept of a car. It had a roof, it had a floor, there are the functional equivalent of chairs. This is a small room the moves. I understand this, human care-taker. Go faster!
Lil dude absolutely loved looking out the window. He would sit as far front as possible on the seat then lean up on the dashboard and look out. He was as intent and focused as a cat can possibly be.
It was so fucking adorable to watch him drink it in. He godamned loved it so! Thought it was the coolest, most mind blowingest experience ever.
He was a good cool dude. RIP friend.
@BugManDan:
Oh, come now. 8mm film, 9mm bullets, Americans know their metric!
To the topic at hand, even starting at zero, we still say it’s baby’s 1st year. Is that so different?