Why you are older in Korea!

In Korea, attention paid to relative ages is much more accentuated than Western culture as it dictates the nature of interactions between two people. In a culture where the language reflects the relationship between the speaker and the subject, it is nothing out of the ordinary to be asked about your age in the first few seconds of meeting one another. One thing to note is that Koreans determine age by the East Asian age reckoning system. A concept and practice originated in China, the system was traditionally adopted by various cultures in East Asia. While, Korea is one of the remaining nations that still practice this custom.

With the East Asian age reckoning system, one year is added to a person’s age at the beginning of each calendar year. This puts newborns at 1 year old. Hence, no matter what day of the year you were born on, you are essentially the same age as everyone else born in that same calendar year. Depending on the time of the year, a person’s age could differ from the conventional age counting system by as much as 2 years. For instance, in Korea, if a baby happens to be born on December 31^st, he/she will be turning two years old on New Year’s Day, when in fact the infant would just be turning two days old based on their biological age from birth. Nonetheless, there are exceptions to the use of this counting system. As a matter of fact, the Western system is designated for all legal procedures and regulations regarding age limit. So to save yourself the trouble of calculating your Korean age next time you are visiting Korea, it is always acceptable to tell someone your birth year as an alternative!