hello, i was wondering about the birthdays and age thing in korea. they use the chinese birth date and not the actual birth date for their birthdays, right? also i think they raise their age up one year, is it because of according to chinese calender? i'm wondering if this is true.

I actually know a lot of koreans, and thats what they say. They are 17 years old, when in North America, they are 16.

korean age add 1 year in korea
coz include 10 months pregant times

yeah....i wonder abt dat tooo.....so confusing.....T_T
abt dat countin 10 months pregnant (izn't it only 9...^_^)....dat way iz so weird

yap...that's chinese practice done by older generation...and use of lunar calendar things for major traditional holidays

thanks for your replies. so korean people add one year to their age because they count it as ten months pregnancy instead of nine? do chinese people add one year to their age too and use chinese birthdate in theie records?

I have never understood the 10 months of pregnancy thing and no one can explain it to me. 9 MONTHS! THERE ARE ONLY N-I-N-E MONTHS!!!!!!!

yes...older generation chinese still do that. and older people still know thier birthday by lunar calendar date. the practice is more prevalent in hong kong, taiwan, and certain overseas chinese communities. but no one uses those date in govt official records. not sure about s korea.

thanks again lucifer

No one's ever explained it to me properly either but this is what I figured out and it seems to make sense. I think the reason is because they are going by the traditional lunar calendar and lunar months are 28 days.

10 lunar months = 280 days.
9 solar months = about 271 days.

Near enough the same.

But why is Korean age sometimes Western age plus 1 and sometimes plus 2? My theory is Korean age goes up 1 on (lunar) new year's day, not on the actual birthday. So if you're born the day before new year's in Korea you're 1, and then you're 2 years old the next day. My other, alternative theory is all the people who told me their Korean age was 2 years more than their Western age were just confused.

STFU.. what do u mean ""chinese practice""?? huh?? u said as if Korea is another name of china... Korea is not Taiwan,, i dont think it relates with u chinese,, its just one of the old Korean tradition. and Using lunar calendar is not only chineses thing..but it used in all over the world incluing asia,,
anyway those some Phaqing chinese replies make me

well....nobody forced you guys to adopt chinese customs and chinese calendar. you dont like it. you can abolish it. For example, Japan abolished using of Chinese lunar calendar 100 some years ago. They no longer celebrate lunar calendar new year aka spring festival.

you dont need to keep reminding koreans of the roots of their tradition and customs. its been such a long time. these traditions belong just as much to koreans as they do to chinese. i dont think they need to feel as if they owe us something.