Why are many South Koreans becoming younger?
- Published
In South Korea, you can be up to three different ages at the same time!
How old are you? It might appear a simple question - but if you ask someone in South Korea you might get back more than one answer!
That's because there are THREE different ways of counting your age in Korea.
But from Wednesday 28 June, South Korea is changing its rules so that there's just one official system, bringing it in line with the rest of the world.
And that will make many South Koreans younger in the process!
Find out more below - and try and work out how old you would be under the different systems!
What's happening?
BTS's V (aka Kim Tae-hyung), has three different ages depending on who you ask!
In the UK we use the widely used international method of counting someone's age, where you're born at the age of 0 and then turn a year older every anniversary of the day of your actual birth, AKA your birthday.
However, in South Korea there are two other ways of calculating your age.
First is the traditional "Korean age" method, which has been used for centuries.
Under this system, everyone is automatically considered to be one year old when they're born, and then they become a year older on New Year's Day, again, regardless of their actual birth date.
This method means that a baby born at 11.55pm on December 31, would turn two five minutes later!
Under another system babies are born at the age of 0, but then get a year older every 1 January - regardless of what date their birthday actually is!
This means that, for example, as of 28 June 2023 a person born on 29 June 2013 is 9 under the international system, 10 under the "counting age" system and 11 under the "Korean age" system!
South Korean President, Yoon Suk-yeol, has changed the current age system for everyone in the country
South Korea is believed to be the only country that still commonly counts age in this way.
But this "Korean age" method is changing as the country's President Yoon Suk-yeol wants this centuries-old method of counting to be scrapped and for South Korea to use the international method, like in the UK.
He thinks the different age calculations causes a lot of confusion as well as "unnecessary social and economic costs". A similar policy to change the age system has been put forward before but has previously failed to get made into law.
The traditional age-counting methods were also used by other East Asian countries, but most have dropped it.
Japan adopted the international standard in 1950 while North Korea changed in the 1980s.
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