One thing that always made me wonder and I never really understood was the Korean age. When I learnt my self-introduction at the beginning of the semester, I learnt to say how old I am: 저는 만 20(스무) 살 입니다. [I am 20 years old.] I was curious to see why I needed to add 만 before my age. My language partner Brenda told me that the use of 만 indicates that the person introducing themselves are referring to their “actual age,” or how we calculate age normally. If you remove that character then you will be referring to your Korean Age, which has a completely different system of calculation.
When I conducted my research online, it was interesting to see how there are many “Korean Age calculator” websites. It made me wondered how distinct it must be that rather having instructions on how to calculate the age, there has to be an automated page to guide you. During my research, I found out that the Korean Age system originated from China, also known as the East Asian age reckoning, where the system sees newborns enter the world at age one instead of zero. I have knowledge of many older generation Chinese people still uses the same system of age calculation, but the South Korean culture have adapted to it differently, forming three age systems. First, Koreans use East Asian age reckoning in their everyday lives. However, the international age system is preferred on official documents, legal provisions, and in media reporting. Thirdly, Koreans use year-age (yeon-nai) for the Juvenile Protection Act and Military Service laws. Yeon-nai is the difference between the birth year and the current year. Koreans turn one year older when the clock strikes 12 on New Year’s Eve, meaning an 18 year old (in international age) who recently celebrated their birthday in say, early December, is considered to be the legal drinking age of 19 after midnight on New Year’s Eve — according to the Juvenile Protection Act.
So, with my birthday in end of May in 1999, my yeon-nai is currently 21 in December 2019, and I will turn 22 on New Year’s Eve.
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