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South Korea To Move To Standardized, Internationally Recognized Age System 81

Posted by msmash from the about-time dept.
South Koreans are set to become one or even two years younger - at least on official paperwork. From a report: On Thursday, the South Korean parliament passed a law to scrap Korea's two traditional methods of counting age. From June 2023, the so-called "Korean Age" system will no longer be permitted on official documents. Only the standardised, internationally recognised method will remain. The government is fulfilling a campaign promise to reduce confusion by adopting the same system used in the rest of the world.

Currently, the most widely used calculation method in Korea is the so-called "Korean age system", in which a person is one year old at birth and then gains a year on the first day of each new year. In a separate method - the "counting age" - a person's age is calculated from zero at birth and a year is added on 1 January.
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South Korea To Move To Standardized, Internationally Recognized Age System More

South Korea To Move To Standardized, Internationally Recognized Age System

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  • An old friend of mine (Score:3)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Thursday December 08, 2022 @04:11PM (#63114426)
    Was born in South Korea before heading to the US. He was “1 year old” the moment he was born, and his parents didnt bother to name him for the next year because he was sickly and wasnt expected to live. He got his name at age 2.
    • Stating somebody's age as "1" isn't necessarily a claim that they are a full year or more old.

      What this reminds me of is the counting of floors in a building. In German class I was taught that they call the first floor the ground floor, and the second floor the first floor.

      So they could say, "What, Americans think they are 1 floor up when their feet are level with the ground!?" Well, no, us calling it the first floor doesn't mean we are up by 1 floor. It's just our convention.

      Also, to a runner, say

      • The labeling of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries always messes up me and forces me to take the extra step of mentally accounting for the off-by-one error. The labeling sort of makes sense in theory, as there can't be a 0th century, but in practice, the off-by-one for the hundred's unit is not so practical. This nonsensical labeling still happens all the time. My company will report 2022Q4 results in February 2023.

        In a similar way, there can't a 0th year of age. However, there is no requirement for age

        • It's simple really. The first 100 years are the first century. The second 100 years are the second century. There was no year zero. Year 1 was the first year, so the years 1 to 100 are the first century, 1901 to 2000 were the 20th century, 2001 to 2100 are the twenty-first century.

          If you thought there was a century that started in the year 2000, and that century wasn't the 20th century, then you are using some weird mixed-up logic.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        China is similar. I'm some regions you are 9 months old when you are born.

        The UK is like Germany, where the ground level floor is called the ground floor, and the 1st floor is one level up from the entrance.

        • China is similar.

          My spouse's parents are Chinese. They know the year they were born, but the month and day were never recorded. Their passports say January 1. Birthdays were not celebrated.

          Today, the system has changed, and the full dates are recorded. Part of the reason was the arrival of McDonald's in China. McD gave kids a free toy on their birthday, but they needed a document that listed it.

          McDonald's also changed queueing culture in China. Traditionally, instead of queueing at an order window, they would mob it and try

        • I'm some regions you are 9 months old when you are born.

          You are??? So, which regions are you?

      • What this reminds me of is the counting of floors in a building. In German class I was taught that they call the first floor the ground floor, and the second floor the first floor.

        No, in Germany and in the UK they call the ground floor the ground floor and the first floor the first floor. In the USA, they call the ground floor the first floor, and the first floor the second floor.

        • No, in Germany and in the UK they call the ground floor the ground floor and the first floor the first floor. In the USA, they call the ground floor the first floor, and the first floor the second floor.

          You don't have floors at ground level? You just walk around on the ground? Do you then have a mat so you can wipe the dirt off of your feet before you ascend to a floor? In many developed nations we have floors in our first story.

      • In German class I was taught that they call the first floor the ground floor, and the second floor the first floor.

        That might make some kind of sense if at some point you built buildings with dirt floors, and then added second floors onto them without adding a floor into the ground level. Otherwise, buildings have floors, so obviously the first one is the one on the ground...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jabuzz ( 182671 )

          I raise you Ninewells hospital in Scotland. Depending which building you go into the "ground" floor could easily be the 4th floor!

          Basically the site is on a hill and as the hospital has expanded over the years new building floor levels match up with the older buildings. So say floor 4 is on the same level above sea level in every building across the site. Which given the buildings are all interconnected makes pushing trolleys around much easier and you don't change floor level just because you walked down a

          • given the buildings are all interconnected makes pushing trolleys around much easier and you don't change floor level just because you walked down a corridor.

            As long as the entrances are marked with the floor number, it sounds like a good and reasonable plan to me.

        • Otherwise, buildings have floors, so obviously the first one is the one on the ground...

          This is only a problem in English where we decided to oversimply our language by giving words multiple meanings. Going back to old English you didn't have 1st floor or 2nd floor. You had 1st storey or 2nd storey.

          Other languages still do that. E.g. Dutch: Beganegrond "Ground basis" Then Erste Verdieping - "First Storey" completely different from the word boden "floor".
          German is the same. Erdgeschoss > Erste Stock > Zweite Stock, no use of the word floor for either.
          French: Rez-de-chaussée > prem

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fazig ( 2909523 )
      The concept isn't that foreign (anymore) to me.
      I've heard the idea of "being in your first year of life" or by extension whatever other year of life a number of times in Germany at least where it's called "Lebensjahr" (lit. year of living).

      German legal text that are concerned with age usually are phrased like "Mit Vollendung des n. Lebensjahres" which directly translates into "with completion of the nth year of living". Using a direct example "with completion of the 18th year of age" in German legal text

  • legal age to drink alcohol so will some be stuck with going from legal to not legal for them?

    • I find it funny that the legal drinking age limit never stopped me from underage drinking, I always found it easy to get alcohol (or lots of other restricted things). But it is very hard (at least it used to be) to rent a car before the age of 25, some companies would do it and charge more, others just would not rent to under 25. For me, age 25 was a much bigger deal than 21, I used to travel a lot. Being able to just rent a car anywhere was really freeing for me.

  • Not quite the way Korean age explained to me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xfade551 ( 2627499 ) on Thursday December 08, 2022 @04:13PM (#63114436)
    I've made a few trips to Korea over the years, and I've had many Korean friends and colleagues. They've all described their age counting method as starting from the date of conception (or at least the best guess of date of conception). Korean Slashdotters feel free to correct me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      That was my understanding as well although I am not Korean so I don't know how much that helps.

    • Re:Not quite the way Korean age explained to me (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Thursday December 08, 2022 @04:24PM (#63114476)
      That's an interesting perspective. First, let's ignore the fact that we're counting from the day someone's parents had sex and the ick factor.

      . But there's another implication there, that the Korean culture considers conception as the formation of "life" which at least in the US is a key point of debate when discussing issues around women's health and abortions. Do Koreans consider an abortion equivalent to murdering a child if they're counting age from conception?

      • (at least as far as Earth-life goes) and has just been multiplying, splitting, and evolving ever since.

        Precisely much of that continuity you want to consider sacred is I suppose just a matter of values.

      • That's an interesting perspective. First, let's ignore the fact that we're counting from the day someone's parents had sex and the ick factor.

        Good, they don't do that, they start at one instead of zero. They also increment age on New Year's Day, so don't read too far into it.

        And abortion is a constitutional right in S Korea so there's that.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Traditionally China also used the Korean system where you are 1 at birth (it's still a concept people have, but not common). It wasn't a conception thing. And surely Korea just inherited the system from China, and then has kept it longer than China.

      It also doesn't make sense that the age would change at the new year's, if it's marking the "birthday" by moment of conception.

    • I've made a few trips to Korea over the years, and I've had many Korean friends and colleagues. They've all described their age counting method as starting from the date of conception (or at least the best guess of date of conception). Korean Slashdotters feel free to correct me.

      I googled it for you, "conception" is the hand wavy rationale, but you are one year old at birth, not .75, not one in a few months. Also it increases on January 1st instead of your birthdate.

      More of a counting from 1 vs 0 thing it sounds like. So if you were born today, you are one. Next month you will be two. Conception doesn't factor in at all.

    • It's a traditional method in Japan as well, although it's long since passed out of official use there. It always seemed to me that it was meant to work this way: "You're born; this is your first year here. January 1st rolls around, marking the beginning of your second year here. And so on." You're never 0 years old, just like there's no 0 A.D.

  • I wonder if this decision has anything to do with their recent decriminalization of abortion.
    • And why exactly would it? [wikipedia.org]

      From 1953 through 2020, abortion was illegal in most circumstances [wikipedia.org], but illegal abortions were widespread and commonly performed at hospitals and clinics. On April 11, 2019, the Constitutional Court ruled the abortion ban unconstitutional and ordered the law's revision by the end of 2020.

      Nothing here about age.

      The government of South Korea criminalized abortion in the 1953 Criminal Code in all circumstances. The law was amended by the Maternal and Child Health Law of 1973 to permit a physician to perform an abortion if the pregnant woman or her spouse has a certain hereditary or communicable diseases, if the pregnancy results from rape or incest, or if continuing the pregnancy would jeopardize the woman's health.

      Even their illegal abortions were more humane than what's being proposed in several US states.

  • Wait... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PuddleBoy ( 544111 ) on Thursday December 08, 2022 @04:41PM (#63114540)

    Does that mean the warranty on a new KIA is shorter than you think?

  • I'm wondering why this is even a thing, /. has always had non tech stuff creeping in but now it's going full tilt?

    • I disagree. Calculating age and dealing with dates is well within the slashdot remit of news for nerds! Someone is going to have to alter government databases and write some code to get this done... And some poor developer is going to have to debug it at some point...

    • I'm wondering why this is even a thing, /. has always had non tech stuff creeping in but now it's going full tilt?

      Slashdot has always been about stuff that Nerds and Geeks find interesting. It has never been exclusively tech. Yes, Nerds and Geeks find tech stuff interesting so tech stuff tends to dominate but they also find other stuff interesting. Dates fall into this as it's notorious how complex dates and times get. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • The Latin expression for age was "annum agens xx" where the indicated age counted the current year as a full year. By current western standards that person would be xix years old.

  • Younger? (Score:4, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday December 08, 2022 @09:57PM (#63115386)

    I'd better check to see if any of those pics of my Korean waifu will become child porn.

  • It seems fencepost errors are not limited to just engineers.
  • Isn't it right that in the western world your date of birth is the date in time zone where you were born? So in the USA, one baby could be born before another but have a later date of birth? I bet they must have some hospitals very close together but in different time zones. Even worse when you consider there are about 26 time zones, not just 24, so in theory dates could be two days apart.
  • For privacy and for the huge parties when everybody has a birthday on the same day! Birthday could no longer be used as private identifying information, which it never should have anyway.
  • I guess if your numbering system didn't originally have a zero, you had to be able to write something on the government forms back in the day.
  • How the Korean age system was typically (and poorly) described: When your born, you are 1; add one year on January 1. Its more about tracking which year you were born in. Its hard for us to let go of the idea of the celebration of birth, or the measure of time spent out of the woom. To outsider, it feels really stupid when you imagine being born before the stroke of midnight on new years, and moments later, you're 2 years, old. How can you be 2 when you're only minutes old? The idea that you've lived in
  • I have some Korean friends and they told me that when you meet somebody for the first time it's obligatory to ask their age first in order to adapt for way of talking to them. You speak diffrently to elders and differently to younger people. They do the same to you of course. So the age is very important in their culture.

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