East Asian age reckoning
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East Asian age reckoning is a concept used in East Asian countries originating in China. Several East Asian cultures, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, 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 system is still widely used in China and is used officially in Korea. However, its use is less common in other countries.
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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 (Traditional Chinese: 實歲; Simplified Chinese: 实岁; pinyin: shísùi).
[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 obsoleted 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.
In modern Korea, the Western age system is widely known and referred to as man na-ee (만, 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 (돌, originally 돐) 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.
The first 100 days and the first dol call for large celebrations, and Koreans celebrate their birthdays, even though every Korean gains one sal on New Year's Day. Additionally, some Koreans, especially of the generation before 1980s, reckon their age and birthday by the lunar calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar.
