East Asian age reckoning
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East Asian age reckoning (Mongolian: Khii nas) is a concept that originated in China and is used in East Asian countries. Several East Asian cultures, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolia and Vietnamese, share a traditional way of counting a person's age. Newborns start at one year old, and each passing of a New Year, rather than the birthday, adds one year to the person's age; this results in people being between 1–2 years older in Asian reckoning than in the Western version. Today this system is commonly used in Koreans' daily life, with exceptions to the legal system and newspaper. In China and Japan it is used for traditional fortune-telling or religion, and it is disappearing in daily life between peoples.
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[edit] Chinese
In either the traditional or modern age system, the word sui (simplified Chinese: 岁; traditional Chinese: 歲; pinyin: suì), meaning "years of age", is used for age counting. The traditional age system is referred to as xusui (simplified Chinese: 虚岁; traditional Chinese: 虛歲; pinyin: xūsuì), and the modern age system is referred to as zhousui (simplified Chinese: 周岁; traditional Chinese: 週歲; pinyin: zhōusùi) or shisui (simplified Chinese: 实岁; traditional Chinese: 實歲; pinyin: shísùi).
In the traditional age system, a year is added because of the gestation time in the womb. [1]
[edit] Japanese
Japanese uses the word sai (歳 or 才) as a counter word for both the traditional and modern age system.
The traditional system of age reckoning, or kazoedoshi (数え年), was rendered obsolete by law in 1902 when Japan officially adopted the western system, man nenrei (満年齢). However, the traditional system was still commonly used, so in 1950 another law was established to encourage people to use the western system.
Today the traditional system is mainly used by the elderly. Elsewhere its use is limited to traditional ceremonies, divinations, and obituaries.
[edit] Korean
Koreans generally refer to their age in units called sal (살), using Korean numerals in ordinal form. Thus, a person is one sal during the first calendar year of life, and ten sal during the tenth calendar year. Although not quite accurate, the common explanation is that the gestation period is counted as a person's first year of life.
The 100th day anniversary (named baek-il (백일), literally, a hundred days) and the first anniversary of birth (named dol (돌)), call for large celebrations, and Koreans celebrate their birthdays, even though every Korean gains one year on New Year's Day. Because the first year comes at birth and the second on New Year's Day, a child born, for example, on December 29 will reach two years of age on January 1st, when they are only three days old in western reckoning.
In modern Korea, the Western age system is widely known and referred to as man na'i (만(滿), meaning "full", 나이 meaning "age"), although the traditional system is most often used. For example, man yeol sal means "full ten years", or "ten years old" in English. The Korean word dol means years elapsed, identical to the English "years old," but is only used to refer to the first few birthdays. Cheot-dol or simply dol refers to the first Western-equivalent birthday, du-dol refers to the second, and so on.
In some countries, some people use the Western system and some use the East Asian system. Most Koreans, especially of the generation before the 1960s, consider themselves to be one sal older on New Year’s Day by the Gregorian calendar and celebrate their birthday by the lunar calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar. The birthday by the lunar calendar is called ‘음력 생일’(陰歷生日, Eumnyeok saeng-il) and ‘양력 생일’(陽歷生日, Yangnyeok saeng-il) is the birthday by Gregorian calendar.
For official government uses, documents, and legal procedures, the western age system is always used. Regulations regarding age limits on alcohol and tobacco use, as well as the age of consent, are all based on the western system (man na'i).
