You would think that something like calculating a person’s age would be universal and the same in every culture. Turns out, it’s not the case. Just as some cultures calculate in what year they are living differently, Koreans have their own way of determining how old someone is.
A TikTok video explaining it went quite viral, exposing that people living in Western countries weren’t aware of the Korean age system and it’s just interesting how people from different parts of the world have different conceptualizations of the same thing.
More info: TikTok
Turns out, there is more than one way to calculate your age, and two of the countries doing it differently are South Korea and North Korea
Image credits: fgg1031
The TikTok page kaboodaofficial is dedicated to educating people about Korea, teaching them the language, and explaining the curious differences they have, like their age calculation system.
The video that has the most views on the page is the one explaining how Koreans calculate their age. It has 512k views and over 110k likes.
Age is very important in Korean culture as it determines how people will address one another
Image credits: kaboodaofficial
The narrator begins by saying that in Korean culture, age is very important. Often, when you meet Koreans, one of the first questions they ask is your age because they want to establish the hierarchy as there are different ways embedded in the language itself how you address people who are older or younger than you.
The TikTok page kaboodaofficial explains this in the second part of the Korean age series. They immediately say that you never address an older person by name and give examples of how you can address them.
One of the Korean age differences from the international age system is that babies that are just born are considered to be 1 year old
Image credits: kaboodaofficial
And people turn 1 year older not on the day they were born, but on January 1st instead
Image credits: kaboodaofficial
So how is the Korean age system different from the international one? Firstly, when you are born, you’re already 1 year old because Koreans take into consideration the 9 months that a person lived in the womb and round them up to 1 year. Secondly, they consider a person to be 1 year older not on the day they were born, but on January 1st.
So every person in the nation gets older on New Year’s Day. Koreans are aware of the international age and it is actually used in such contexts as courts, hospitals, and public offices. However, in their daily lives, they use Korean age.
Image credits: kaboodaofficial
Because of the Korean age calculation system depending on what time of the year it is, people would be 1 or 2 years older than their actual age
Image credits: kaboodaofficial
If you want to know how old you would be in Korea, kaboodaofficial provides an example. A person born on October 10th, 2010 would be 10 years old now, in September of 2021, because their birthday hasn’t passed yet. But in Korea, that person would be 12 years old (in the video, the narrator made a mistake and addressed it in the comments).
When that person celebrates their birthday, they would be 11 years old in Western countries, but in Korea, they would still be 12 years old. Then they would turn 13 on January 1st.
In the table, there is a formula for how you would know how old you are in Korea. So, if you have already celebrated your birthday, just add 1 to your current age and if your birthday has not yet passed, add 2 to your age.
Image credits: bryan…
In the video below, you can listen to the full explanation
@kaboodaofficial
