The reason why Koreans are born at 1 year old

The last two posts were about the complicated way in which people count age and birthdays in Korea, but did you ever stop and wonder why Koreans are born at 1 year old? If you ask anyone who's been in Korea a while, the answer you will doubtlessly hear is that the 9 months the baby spends in the womb counts as 1 year. If you don't think about it, it seems to make sense, but give it a moment's thought and really is just total nonsense. Firstly How can 9 months be counted as a year? And if you don't know when the child was conceived, how on Earth can you start counting it's age?
The real reason is mainly mathematical, but has a lot to do with Korean culture too.

Korean culture is extremely conservative. Ancient practises, customs and habits have been fossilised into the fabric of modern korean society and they still shape attitudes today. For example In the 17th century some European sailors shipwrecked on the shore of Jeju-do were arrested and held captive in Korea for 13 years basically because they were foreigners. Not much has changed: just think about your friends with Korean wives! hahaha... Anyway Because Korean culture is so conservative many things which other cultures have forgotten about are kept alive. And one of these things is inclusive counting.

Before the invention and importation of zero to Europe and East Asia, inclusive counting was the standard. Remember Roman numerals? There's no zero there. When zero arrived a new counting system was invented and inclusive counting was forgotten, in most places, for ever.

Inclusive counting basically means that instead of counting from 0, you start counting from 1. And when people counted days, months, years, they used this system.

Today is Saturday.
Not counting inclusively, if I say "in two days" I mean Monday. Saturday is "0", Sunday "1" and Monday "2".
Counting inclusively Saturday is "1" Sunday is "2" and Monday is "3".
So that means if I wanted to say "in 2 days (on Monday)" using inclusive counting I would have had to say "in 3 days"!

It's exactly the same with years and if we count backwards.
It's 2012
Not counting inclusively if I say "three" years ago I mean 2009 -> 2012 is "0" 2011 is "1" 2010 is "2" and 2009 is "3"
Counting inclusively, 2009 is 4 years ago! ->2012 is "1" 2011 is "2" 2010 is "3" and 2009 is "4"!

So whenever you count anything inclusively the value is one more than not counting inclusively! Just like Koreans are normally one year older than their western counterparts born in the same year!

Although Korea doesn't use inclusive counting officially, it has been kept for counting birthdays, much like the lunar calendar is used for traditional holidays. So the real reason that Koreans are born at 1 and not zero is that they count birthdays using an ancient system of counting which has no 0 and therefore starts at 1.

Birthdays and Age, a crazy confusion 2: the lunar calendar

If you read the last post... The korean system for counting age would mean that anyone born in Korea on the 31 December is 1 year old, and the next day they would turn 2 years old. Crazy you think? This is Korea, so things inevitably get crazier...

In Korea there are 2 calendars or ways of counting the days of the year. They are 양력yang-nyeok / The Solar, modern/western calendar and 음력eum-nyeok / the Lunar, ancient/chinese calendar. The two big holidays 추석chu-seok / the Korean harvest festival and 설날seol-lal / lunar new year's are determined by the lunar calendar and 설날seol-lal / lunar new year's is the beginning of the lunar new year and calendar. Some people count their age, not by the Solar calendar, but by the lunar one. Instead of getting one year older on the first of January, they get one year older on the first day of 설날seol-lal / lunar new year's. Just like Easter'seaster is also determined by the ancient European lunar calendar exact days change every year, so do 설날seol-lal / lunar new year's's. So if you use the lunar calendar to count your birthday, the day changes every year too.

Luckily it's mainly old people and people from Daegu who like to make things like this extremely confusing by counting their age through the lunar calendar. Because the date changes every year, and its difficult to keep track of when your birthday is on the solar calendar, some people just make up a solar birthday and put it on their ID. Other people, tired of stupid foreigners always asking questions, just say "I don't know when my birthday is."

Birthdays and Age, a crazy confusion 1

Age is very important in Korean culture, and people from other countries are often taken aback when immediately after shaking someone's hand, they are asked: "how old are you?" For some it's simply more surprising than offensive, but it's often both and it's definitely weird (until you get used to it).

But it's not just the question that can cause problems, it's also the answer. Most countries, going Westwards from China, are born 0 years old and one year after their birth, they turn 1 year old. In Korea and China, on the other hand, the moment people are born, they are 1. So on their next birthday they are 2 (notice here I didn't write "turn 2", keep on reading to see why), basically making everyone one year older than they are in the West.
For an American born in 1990 he would be 22 this year(2012), but for a Korean, she would be 23.

But! Things get even more complicated because Koreans don't actually get older on their birthdays. They get older on New Years! This took me a long while to get my head around, but basically you celebrate your birth on your birthday, but you add an extra year to your age on January the 1st every year. What that means is that from the day of your birthday to January the first of the next year you are one year older than in the West. But from January the 1st of the next year until your birthday, you are two years older than your western age. Remember your western age gets +1 on year birthday.
So for an American born on June the 1st 1990 he would be 22 this year(September 2012), but in Korea, before January the 1st 2013, he would be 23. And after January the 1st 2013 until his birthday in 2013 he would be two years older(24) than his western age!

This can be a little confusing, dont think about it too much and calculate your calculate your Korean age first!

• Take today's date, is it before or after your birthday this year?
• If it's after, you're one year older
• If it's before, you're two... until your birthday. Remember you age on your birthday in the west.
• Just remember on January the 31st everyone will be two years older until their next birthday...

Names and why Koreans don't use them

Ever watched a Korean film and noticed the subtitle is totally different to what's being said? Often that's because Koreans don't use names when they talk to their friends.

In Korea, your social status is more important than you as an individual, and your relationship with the person you're talking to is more important than the person themselves. Just as with verb endings, the most important factor in setting up a friendship-relationship, is age.

And this is the reason why Koreans always ask "how old are you?". They need to work out how to structure their relationship and what to call each other. Once you know who's older, the younger person never refers to the older one by name. The older one, on the other can if they want.
The names (or words you use to call each other) are family member names. So essentially everyone who you would call "friend" in English, you call brother or sister.

Names in Korea perform only an official function, so a name is generally only written, or when the only way to distinguish between people is to use a name. Take a class for example, everyone except the teacher is of the same status, so names are used by the teacher to tell students apart. Remember though, the teacher is high status. If you call someone older than you by name, then you're putting youself higher than them, much like a teacher talking to a pupil.

Coming from a society where everyone is "equal" calling people as "big brother" when they're not your big brother is definitely awkward, but it has to be done. I find this much harder than the 문법mun-beop / grammar my teachers always go on about.