Korean Age and its significance

Do you happen to know how old you are in “Korean age”?

Just in reading that one sentence, I imagine there are plenty of questions running through your head. For starters, “What’s Korean age?” and “Does everyone not calculate age the same way?”

Korean age refers to a system of calculating age that was actually widely used in many other East Asian countries such as China, Japan, and Vietnam. However, its use has become quite limited in those other countries but remains prevalent in the Republic of Korea, and has thus gone on to become more widely recognized as “Korean age.”

 

How does Korean age work?

To explain this, we can first look at what is called “international age,” or the age system that is most widely used throughout the world. According to this system, children are born at zero years old and turn one year older every year on their birthday. So a baby born on December 31, 2000 will turn one year old on December 31, 2001.

In contrast to this, babies are born already one year old under Korean age. Along with that, despite everyone’s birthday being on different days, everyone turns one year older simultaneously on January 1 of the new year. So a baby born on December 31, 2000 would be born at one year old and then one day later on January 1, 2001, that baby would turn two years old.

An easy way to calculate Korean age is simply:

Current Year – Birth Year + 1 = Korean age

 

Why does everyone turn one year older on January 1 and not on their own birthday?

This is because the main purpose of using Korean age is to group people by the year they were born as opposed to their individual birthdays. An easier way to understand this would be to look at international age. If someone were to ask you what year you were born in and you answer “2000,” they still wouldn’t immediately be able to tell how old you are. And that is because they wouldn’t know if your birthday had passed or not. So in 2021, you could either be twenty or twenty-one depending on when the person asks and when your birthday is.

Confusing, right?

But with Korean age, since everyone turns older on the same day, everyone who was born in the same year will always be the same age. Therefore, everyone born in 2000 will all be twenty-two years old in the year 2021, no matter whether or not their actual birthday has passed.

That is why, in the Republic of Korea, it is most common for people to ask what year you were born in as opposed to your actual birthday, since it is just a simple calculation to figure out your age from there.

 

What is the purpose of Korean age?

The workings of Korean society are heavily influenced by Confucianism, specifically the idea of a social hierarchy based on age and social status. According to this hierarchy, people of older age should be respected by their juniors, thus making even a year’s difference in age extremely significant in determining the nature of a relationship between people. This has also led to a culture centered around titles and different ways of verbally addressing people based on age and the closeness of a relationship. When addressing someone who is older than you, it is expected for you to maintain a higher level of respect and use the proper titles to address them. On the other hand, you are free to talk more casually to someone younger than you and, as the older one in the relationship, you are the one who is able to determine the dynamic of the relationship.

And because Korean age makes it so that those born in the same year are always the same age, there is no debate over who is older and who is younger in the case where both were born in the same year. They are simply the same age and can thus automatically interact casually with one another.

Because of this culture of titles and formalities, one’s age is often one of the first things people ask when first meeting someone. This way, it can quickly be established what title each person should use to refer to each other and whether or not they can talk casually to one another.

If you have read this far but still find yourself feeling slightly confused over the workings of Korean age and international age, it may be of some comfort to you to know that there are times when even Koreans find distinguishing the two to be complicated.

For example, in real estate transactions or any other case where official documents need to be filled out, a person’s international age is written on the documents, thus making international age still very much relevant and practical in Korean society. However, the combined use of both of these systems can make it quite confusing when someone’s age is mentioned without any specifications as to whether or not it is the person’s international age or Korean age. Instances like this often occur on the news or other television programs, and listeners often cannot be one-hundred percent certain whether the mentioned age is international age or Korean age.

While international age is practical for business transactions and other official procedures, especially with international companies and partners, Korean age is of irreplaceable value and is an invaluable part of the very foundation of Korean society and its workings. So while the differences between these two systems may be difficult to grasp at first, understanding Korean age is essential to understanding the Republic of Korea as a whole and is definitely a subject worth looking into if you truly wish to delve deeper into understanding the interactions that occur within Korean society.

With all that being said, can you now confidently say how old you are in Korean age?

 

 

Written by : Allison Garbacz

From Illinois, United States. Current 5th-year undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, B.A. Candidate for Linguistics, B.A. Candidate for Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, Exchange student at Korea University, Intern at VANK (Voluntary Agency Network of Korea)