South Korea's quest to fill the confusion gap

by



[ad_1]

In Korea, babies are considered to be one year old on the day of their birth, which means that a person born in January 1990 is 30 years old in Korea, not 29 years old. For those born late in the year, the gap can be even bigger. A baby born on December 31st is two years old on January 1st.

This can cause a lot of confusion, which legislator Hwang Ju-hong is determined to change.

South Korea is the "only country" of East Asia to still use the traditional system, Hwang said by introducing a bill in parliament earlier this year to make it consistent with the international standard.

The Korean age system has its roots in China. The language and the Chinese writing system were once widely used in Korea and influenced the development of modern Korean.

In Chinese, age is traditionally written in an ordinal system, starting with one. The same is true in Korean. It is said that a baby is in his first year, or han sal, at birth and that he enters on December 31st in his second year, from sal. When it is expressed in English, han sal becomes "a year", which creates confusion.

While the traditional Chinese system is no longer used, people still distinguish linguistically the nominal age of somebody (xusui), based on the traditional system, and its actual age (shisui) , although most give to the latter – which also matters legally – when asked.
The fundamental difference is that this system starts counting to one rather than zero. Although it may sound confusing, we also do it in English; think of the 2000s compared to the 21st century – in the first case, we count 2000 years from 0AD, while the second considers 0-100AD as the first century, not the zero century.
In Japan, a traditional system in which the age of people has progressed from one year on New Year's Day was abandoned in the early twentieth century, although it was partially used until the beginning of the 20th century. in the 1950s, when a law was passed to adopt the international system.
The laws in South Korea are currently a mixture of different systems. People use the traditional Korean age in everyday life, but their legal age is based on international calculation. However, for some laws, including those relating to the age limit for movies, the measurement is based on the year of birth, regardless of the month. This means that two people born in January and December 1990 are considered to be the same age.

"The difference between the age calculation methods used in legal life and in everyday life has had several detrimental effects, such as the waste of unnecessary administrative costs, confusion in the exchange of money, and the loss of money. information due to its difference with other countries and the conflict due to the reinforcement of an age-based hierarchy culture and avoid certain months for childbirth, supports the Hwang bill.

If this bill is passed, it will mean that South Korea makes the international system "mandatory in all legal matters and in all official documents". Local governments and corporations will also be encouraged to adopt it for consistency.

While Hwang calls for widespread support from other MPs, his bill is likely to be delayed. The National Assembly of South Korea is blocked by controversial bills on elections, which means that lawmakers are not considering any other legislation.

If Hwang's bill is not debated and put to the vote during this session, it will be dropped and will have to be introduced again after next year's elections.

Yoonjung Seo reported in Seoul, South Korea. James Griffiths reported from Hong Kong. Ryan Nam and Jennifer Kim of CNN contributed to the stories.

[ad_2]

Source link