Every person in South Korea is about to get at least one year younger after the government passed legislation ending the country's ancient and unusual way of counting age.
New legislation kicks in on Wednesday that adopts the more widely-held practice of beginning to count a person's age when they are born. Traditionally in South Korea, however, a person is considered one year old on the day they are born, and the whole country collectively ages one year on New Year's Day.
The predicament means that a baby born on December 31st would be considered two years old on its second day outside the womb.
South Korea's official documents will begin using the international standard for counting age on Wednesday, leaving it up to individual citizens to adjust their ages based on their birth dates.
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Korea is only the latest east Asian country to adjust its aging standard. Both China and Japan also traditionally counted the months inside the womb toward a person's age. They also counted age based on the New Year rather than an individual's birthday, though they adopted Western aging standards in the 1900s.
The change presents specific challenges for South Korea, however, where age plays a more central role in how people interact with one another. The young are expected to defer to their elders in the country, and schoolchildren will typically ask one another's ages before even exchanging names, according to the Wall St. Journal.
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As a result, those getting pushed back two years rather than just one are in for a bit of a culture shock. One boy, Lee Jin-soo, was 15 last week but is now 13, meaning he must defer to some classmates who lost only one year and are now 14.
"I’m upset that I have to wait until my birthday in October to become the same age as them," Lee told WSJ.
The country also had to pass legislation regarding how age limits are impacted by the new counting system. The country's mandatory military service system will still operate based on the old form of counting age, but the legal drinking age is falling from 20 to 19.
