age

Age seems like a simple enough concept. It's just a measure of the amount of time that has passed since a person was born. Korea does it differently, though.

In Korea, when a baby is born, its age is already set at 1. The reasoning is that the baby has existed inside the mother's womb for 9 months already. I guess they figure why not just round that up to one year. Now, you might think that the age of a person would then go up on their birthday. In Korea, that's wrong. I guess it would just make too much sense.

Here, everybody's age goes up on January 1st. When the age of the Earth goes up one year, every person's age goes up with it. Therefore, if a baby is born on December 31st, it is 1. The next day, on New Year's Day, its age goes up. So, a one day old baby can be said to have the age of 2. This is why anytime I ask a student how old they are, I have to follow that question up by asking what year they were born. You know, so I can find out the real answer.

Let's now take my case. I was born in October of 1983. So, while in America I'm 28, in Korea I'm already 29. New Year's Day is a little more than a week away. Hence, on January 1st, as far as Korea is concerned, I'll be turning 30. Lame.