The Korean Age System Vs The World's, As Explained By A TikTok User

They just do things differenly in the aspect of birthdays.

Sophia

• Published in Interesting
• April 10, 2022

It's not really that surprising to think (and this is already a given) that some nations and their cultures have so many differences from the rest of the world, but it's a whole other story when it is something you thought is universal and the same for all of us people. It's one thing to learn how some people dress differently than you do in their own countries, but it's truly an interesting take when you come to know that some nations have something so different from something so common in the world.

The subject in question is our ages. It has become such common knowledge that we count our ages from the year after we were born, and when we come fresh out of the womb, we are labeled as only a few minutes or seconds old.

Well, this is certainly different for Koreans. As it turns out, they actually have a different way of counting their ages.

It's not really that complicated, though, but surely, a lot of people—particularly in the Western countries, were surprised to learn about this different age system followed by North and South Koreans. When a TikToker explained this whole Korean age system on the platform, people were quick to put in their two cents to this whole new knowledge.

Age is such an important thing when it comes to Korean Culture, and they actually count their ages a bit different from the rest of the world.

The account is dedicated to teaching people about Korea, the Korean language, and how different their culture is from the rest of the world. The user's video about the Korean Age System has now gathered over 500k views and over 110k likes.

The video begins with the TikToker explaining how age is an important deal in Korean culture. They also highlight that when you meet Koreans, the one question that they would most likely ask would be your age, as they would want to know how to address you (they address older and younger people differently).

Koreans never address older people by their mere names. The account gave examples of how we can address others in terms of Korean culture.

One way to easily figure out their age system is by remembering the fact that once a Korean baby is born, its age is automatically set to one, since they also take into consideration the time that was spent inside the womb.

There's also another twist, though: they don't count their age by using their actual birthday as a milestone, they use New Year's Day to add one to their age!

Basically, every single person in Korea ages at the same time when it's January 1st. Cool, right?

The very thing that makes this peculiar than the rest of the world is that this whole age system would make Koreans 1-2 years older than their actual age.

Here's the video with the full explanation:

It's also interesting to note that both South and North Korea follows this system.

People in the comments also pointed out some other ways to calculate their Korean age easier.

They still give importance to their actual birthdays. However, they just turn a year older every New Year's Day, and not on their birthdays.

Basically, even if you were born in the late half of the year, your age would still be incremented once it's New Year's Day.

Some people expressed confusion about this unusual age system:

The Korean Age System is certainly a refreshing yet unusual thing, but this just shows how truly different one nation can be from the rest of the world, even if it's just a matter of ages. Have you ever heard of this system before now?

Comment down your thoughts, or share this article for all your family and friends to see!

Sophia