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Why Koreans ask what year you were born

bryanhogan.com

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Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#5
post #4

A friend (not Korean) said on his 29th birthday that he's starting his 30th year of life. It was an interesting perspective, because in general we celebrate our nth birthday after completing n years of life.

Personally I prefer to round 29 years 6 months up to «I’m now 30 years old». As you would expect to happen if you run round(29.5). For some reason, most cultures settled on either floor(age) or ceil(age).

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#6
> The younger person also addresses the older person, usually with a title or another word that fits their relationship, but not their name. Only the older person addresses the younger one with their name. (There can be more nuance.)

I love this. I'm an old French guy and still can't quite accept when srangers in an email (or a machine, a system, a web form) adress me using my first name.

Being "on a first name basis" still has meaning for me -- or it would, if it had for anyone else, which clearly is absolutely not the case anymore.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#7
post #3

Those Korean kids born on December 31st must be the kings and queens of their peer group when they become eligible to buy alcohol two years ahead of the others!

As far as I understand, they would primarily be in the same peer group as all other people with their Korean age.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#8
post #6

> The younger person also addresses the older person, usually with a title or another word that fits their relationship, but not their name. Only the older person addresses the younger one with their name. (There can be more nuance.) I love this. I'm an old French guy and still can't quite accept when srangers in an email (or a machine, a system, a web form) adress me using my first name. Being "on a first name basis…

Cultural imperialism.

Re: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

#9
post #3

Those Korean kids born on December 31st must be the kings and queens of their peer group when they become eligible to buy alcohol two years ahead of the others!

Not really because everyone starts at one, so at most it's one year younger those born on Jan 1st.

Also their peer group usually being people born the same year, everyone gets to drink at the exact same time (unlike in other countries where everyone reach drinking age at their birthday).

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