2023-06-28 02:32:58
A desire of human beings is to be able to control time, so that youth does not slip away. The only possible trick is to pretend to be old. Starting tomorrow, a country will make all its inhabitants one or two years younger.
This is South Korea, which adopted a rule that, at first glance, would be more understandable in its northern neighbor. Strictly speaking, it is a westernization. The new regulations will mean that from this June 28, South Koreans will adjust to the date of birth to calculate age.
With this, only Taiwan is left with the Chinese counting system, whereby every person, regardless of when they were born, turns one year old every January 1st. According to the Eastern tradition, being one year old at birth implies counting the time in the womb, rounding the nine months to twelve.
Thus, if a baby is born on December 31, the next day it is counted two years, even if it has 24 hours of life. Switching to the Western system means that South Koreans will be able to subtract a year and even two in the case of those born on New Year’s Eve.
This change will “greatly reduce social costs due to the different calculation systems used so far,” said Minister of Government Legislation Lee Wan-kyu.
The modification was a campaign promise by President Yoon Suk-yeol in the 2022 elections, to lower the high social costs. The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the situation in the application of vaccines. The cut-off age for dosing was not clear, as many doubted whether the age in question was that of the Chinese or Western system.
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