Good riddance to Korean age

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Mark Peterson

Good riddance to Korean age

Posted : 2023-07-04 16:35

Updated : 2023-07-04 16:49

By Mark Peterson

As a "cultural columnist," I suppose I need to respond to the news of June 28, the date when Korea abandoned "Korean age" and adopted, officially, the age system used in the rest of the world ― "man-u-ro."

The story has even appeared on American television news. It's international news.

I just learned that President Yoon Suk Yeol campaigned on a promise to make the international standard the standard in Korea. No more dual-age reckoning.

So, congratulations to all my Korean friends. In one fell swoop, you've all become one or two years younger.

Many people are confused about how the system works, and why it's a one-year difference at times and a two-year difference at other times. That part is quite clear, actually ― it's a two-year difference until your birthday, and then a one-year difference after that. But that is all by the board now.

Laws do not change culture, at least not immediately. How long will we still hear the response to the age question with the old Korean answer, or with the two options answer? I suppose the simple answer will eventually win out and the Korean age quagmire will soon disappear. Maybe?

There have been some funny cultural by-products of the Korean age issue. I'm thinking of the explanation that Korean age starts calculating the age of the fetus in utero. But this is a side-track ― an interesting but inaccurate side-track. The real reason for the Korean age reckoning is based on old East Asian mathematics where there is no zero. So, age reckoning begins with 1, not zero. We see this in other year measurements, for example, the reign of kings ― the first year of a king's reign was always year one, not year zero.

The reign of kings starting at year one, makes sense, actually. "The first year of the reign of King Sejong" ― not the zero year of King Sejong. It makes sense to say, "The King began to raise taxes from year one."

In early forms of English, we hear it, too. Maybe not in contemporary English. "I was in my 15th year" means "I was 14 years old."

My question, though, is will the term of pregnancy change? In the international system, full-term pregnancies last nine months. But Korean culture says "10 months." I recently told a Korean nurse I know that American babies were born after nine months ― she asked how they could all deliver prematurely! I explained that it's the same thing as Korean age ― the count starts at one, not zero. For her, the lights suddenly came on.

The Korean age situation is distorted by one other somewhat common factor. That is the practice of registering a baby's birth with the government office a year or two after the baby was born. This has been explained to be a precaution against common infant mortality ― waiting until the family is sure the baby will survive infancy. I understand this was quite common some years ago ― I doubt that it is still seen today.

A case that I know greatly benefited from the delayed birth record. Harvard has a scholarship program called the Harvard-Yenching scholarship for "young" Asian scholars to come study for a year at Harvard. A candidate named Song June-ho applied for the grant, spent a year at Harvard and became a research partner with professor Edward Wagner. After that first year, Song was able to return two more times, to work with Wagner. Together they created the Wagner-Song index ― a comprehensive list of all those who passed the "munkwa," high civil service exam, 13,500 men including their family information, hometown and other information. It is an extremely valuable resource for the study of the Joseon Kingdom.

Few people know that in the first case, Song qualified to be a young scholar, under the age of 40, because his birth was recorded two years late. He was really 42. Yet his technical qualification for the scholarship enabled one of the most important collaborations in the field of Korean history.

Personally, I welcome the abandonment of Korean age. A few years ago, when I was 68 years old, I went to Korea and suddenly realized I was 70. In one airplane ride, I went from my 60s, into my 70s. I was glad to get back on the plane to return to being in my 60s. It wasn't a matter of one or two years, but a whole decade!

So, I say good riddance to Korean age. I'm 76 years old now. That used to be 78 in Korean age. And getting close to my 80s. I'm not ready to age another ten years any sooner than I absolutely have to ― four years from now, not two years from now. We're all happy being a little younger!

Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is a professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.