“How old are you”? It’s a simple question with a clear answer. But for those in South Korea, answering this question is anything but straightforward. Because there are several ways of counting one’s age in South Korea.
Officially(官方地), the country has used the international counting way, using a person’s birth date only, in most areas since 1962. The country also has another official way to count age, in which babies are born at the age of 0, and get a year every January 1. Under this, a baby born in December 2020 would be two years old by January 2022, even if they wouldn’t officially turn two until December of that year. And then there’s the “Korean age” way. It is more commonly used by them. Everyone is one year old at birth, and becomes a year older on New Year’s Day regardless(不管) of their birth date.
The ways of counting age in South Korea may soon change as the country’s president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is pushing for the “Korean age” way to be ended. He was looking to change the age counting way in order to bring South Korea in line with the rest of the world. He said the different age calculations(计算) had resulted in difficulties in management(管理) and waste of money. The new plan seems to have been widely accepted by some—but experts say they are not sure whether it will actually be used.
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