“How old are you”? It’s a simple question with a clear answer. But for those in South Korea, answering this question is anything but straightforward. In South Korea, when a baby is born they are considered a year old. Come New Year’s Day, they gain another year. This means a baby born in December would be considered to be two years old in just a few weeks. But this “Korean age” method may soon change as the country’s president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is pushing for this centuries-old method of counting to be abolished. Lee Yong-ho, the chief of the president-elect’s transition committee, said the incoming administration was looking to standardise the way age is counted in order to bring South Korea in line with the rest of the world. He said the different age calculations had resulted in “persistent confusion” and “unnecessary social and economic costs”. The new proposal seems to have been widely embraced by some – but experts say they have doubts as to whether it will actually be implemen...
