Instead of starting at zero, Korean tradition counts the time spent in the womb as your first year. It's like getting a one-year head start on life the moment you arrive!
Have you ever imagined being 2 years old just a few days after being born? In South Korea, a unique tradition called "Korean Age" makes everyone older than they would be in the rest of the world.
In Western culture, a baby is "zero" days old at birth. But in Korea, the time you spend growing inside your mother (about 9 months) is rounded up to a full year. So, the moment you take your first breath, you are already 1 year old.
It gets even more interesting. In this system, you don't age up on your birthday. Instead, everyone turns a year older on January 1st.
Because this system caused a lot of confusion in legal and medical documents, the South Korean government officially switched to the International Age (starting at 0) in June 2023. However, many people still use the traditional way in their daily social lives.
The Korean age system is about respecting the time life begins before birth. Even if the law has changed, the tradition remains a fascinating part of how Koreans see time and growth.