S Koreans get younger after age counting method changed

imagine waking up and finding yourself a year or two younger that's what's happening to South Koreans a law passed last December scrapping the traditional method of counting someone's age came into effect on Wednesday I'm supposed to be 30 next year under the traditional Korean age system but with the international age I'm two years younger it's great to feel like I'm getting younger traditionally South Koreans are

deemed to be a year old at Birth and every January 1st a year is added to a person's age the country has used the international Norm of calculating from zero at Birth and adding a year on every birthday since the early 1960s but that's mainly for medical and legal documents while the traditional method was used for everything else I'm going to study abroad in the UK

so I think it's less confusing that I don't need to explain about Korean age and just can say my International agent of the countries at a briefing earlier this week a cabinet minister said he hopes the change will ease confusion especially among older people who may believe they are eligible for Senior Benefits before they legally are we expect that legal disputes complaints and social confusion that

have been caused over how to calculate ages will be greatly reduced maybe maybe not South Korea is still keeping another age system where a person's age is calculated from zero at Birth like the international Norm but a year is added every January 1st instead of on the date of birth that system will still be used for compulsory military service the school year and in determining the

legal age for drinking and smoking I was worried that I would be banned from drinking but I'm relieved I can still drink South Korea now joins other East Asian countries who drop the traditional age counting method decades ago Florence Louis Al Jazeera siwanku a South Korean journalist and publisher is joining us now live from Stuttgart in Germany an interesting change I was just wondering how many

of your friends and family will be very happy to perhaps feel a little bit younger today well I certainly am happy myself considering that under the old system in Korea I was 44 but now I'm 42. and uh but in reality in most aspects of life as you know correspondent explain not a lot of change is to be expected because um in the legal system in

government documents also in healthcare the Western Way of counting age has in fact been in use for a long time but as your correspondent also explained for things such as drinking buying cigarettes doing military service when your children go to school we're still maintaining the old system so if I could just if I can just jump in there if I can just jump in there we'll

talk about the impact in a moment let's just talk about why the Korean government have decided now is the right time to make that change obviously we know all the details of what why it's changing and how it's going to impact on people but why do you think they've done it now yeah because it's tremendously confusing for many people some people think of how old they

are in terms of the Western Way of counting others do according to Korean way of counting and they're in fact more than one way of doing it the Korean way so to speak um yes you're one when you're born and you turn when you're older on January 1st but some people think that your age actually increases with Lunar New Year not with the solar Luna New

Year on January 1st some people actually wonder if the birthday has anything to do with it so you can imagine that this has led to quite a bit of misunderstanding in the past and the popular support for this change is incredibly high at some 70 according to most surveys you touched on the pat on the fact of some areas that it would impact on the day-to-day

lives of people getting a bus pass retirement age buying alcohol or even the age of consent but where do you think the biggest difference or the biggest impact will be as time grow addresses uh I think the biggest impact is in the way people in Korea think about their relations to one another in Korea it is very common for someone to assert let's say superiority in

social hierarchy according to their age the older you are the more respected you are and when you ask people how old you are and many people do even on meeting someone for the first time the answer that Koreans usually give is their year of birth not the actual age and what the new system now means is that people in fact have to be quite precise in

saying exactly how old they are and this will certainly lead to let's say renegotiation of dynamic in the social sphere indeed I mean I just wondered how much pushback there may be if any at all in terms of the generational divide perhaps the younger generation are quite perhaps amenable to this will the older generation be confused by it all uh I think certainly in some rural

communities you're bound to see a pushback or resistance but overall Koreans are very quick to embrace change and this is something that in fact many sectors of society have been pushing for for a long time so I don't think that there is going to be a return to the old way of doing things I've got to say uh Sue wonku uh it's good that both you

and me look 21 for TV purposes for your time thanks very much for joining us from Stuttgart in Germany thank you so much for having me