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South Koreans set to become younger as traditional way of counting age scrapped
- theandrewbailey 4y agoSo a Korean baby can be born today (in December), and will be 2 years old in a month? That doesn't seem right.
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y agoI guess the question isn't "how old are you?", it's "what calendar year are you in?". Equivalent to someone saying they were in graduating class of 2018.
- barbazoo 4y agoThey grow up so fast
- daveslash 4y agoSeems like a baby born on Dec 31 would be 2 years old come the next day of Jan 1.....
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- LorenPechtel 4y agoSame thing in China. I keep telling my wife this is America, not China, use your American age. I think it's based on the Chinese (lunar) calendar rather than Jan 1, though.
- johnthuss 4y agoIt is fascinating that this unique system developed there. Cultures are a bottomless bucket of diversity.
- daveslash 4y agoAgreed. Perfect example of how something that one can take for granted as being 'obvious' isn't always.
- contextfree 4y agoIt was once in use throughout much of East Asia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning As an American, I remember first encountering it in a footnote to an English translation of the Tale of Genji.
- Asraelite 4y agoWhat's the public reaction to this? Are people likely to start using international ages in day-to-day conversations? I can imagine it might be like the US "officially" adopting metric, but in practice almost no one using it even decades later.
- daveslash 4y agoDoes North Korea follow the same traditional system as South Korea?
- cyphar 4y agoAccording to [1], North Korea stopped using it in the 80s. Apparently it is also used in Taiwan in conversation. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning
- v0idzer0 4y agoHuge win for 0 based numbering!