East Asian age reckoning
Encyclopedia
East Asian age reckoning is a concept and practice that originated in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 and is widely used by other cultures in East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

, which share this traditional way of counting a person's age
Ageing
Ageing or aging is the accumulation of changes in a person over time. Ageing in humans refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change. Some dimensions of ageing grow and expand over time, while others decline...

. Newborns start at one year old, and each passing of a Lunar New Year
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...

, rather than the birthday
Birthday
A birthday is a day or anniversary where a person celebrates his or her date of birth. Birthdays are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with a gift, party or rite of passage. Although the major religions celebrate the birth of their founders , Christmas – which is celebrated widely by...

, adds one year to the person's age. In other words, the first year of life is counted as one instead of zero, so that a person is two years old in their second year, three years old in their third, and so on. Since age is incremented on the new year rather than on a birthday, people may be 1 or 2 years older in Asian reckoning than in the Western system.

The system is also widely used by Koreans
Korean people
The Korean people are an ethnic group originating in the Korean peninsula and Manchuria. Koreans are one of the most ethnically and linguistically homogeneous groups in the world.-Names:...

, with the exception of the legal system and newspapers. In Eastern Outer Mongolia
Outer Mongolia
Outer Mongolia was a territory of the Qing Dynasty = the Manchu Empire. Its area was roughly equivalent to that of the modern state of Mongolia, which is sometimes informally called "Outer Mongolia" today...

, age is traditionally determined based on the number of full moons since conception for girls, and the number of new moons since birth for boys. In Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 it is used for traditional fortune-telling
Fortune-telling
Fortune-telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune-telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination...

 or religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

, and it is disappearing in daily life between people in the city.

Chinese

In either the traditional or modern age system, the word sui , meaning "years of age", is used for age counting. When a person's age is given in a publication, it is often specified whether that is his or her traditional age or modern age or shisui .

When a child has survived one month of life (29 days if lunar month reckoning) a muen yuet celebration can be observed in which duck or chicken eggs dyed red are distributed to guests to signify fertility.

Japanese

Japanese uses the word sai ( or ) as a counter word
Japanese counter word
In Japanese, counter words or counters are used along with numbers to count things, actions, and events.In Japanese, as in Chinese and Korean, numerals cannot quantify nouns by themselves...

 for both the traditional and modern age system.

The traditional system of age reckoning, or kazoedoshi , was rendered obsolete by law in 1902 when Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 officially adopted the Western system, known in Japanese as man nenrei . 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.

Korean

Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

ns generally refer to their age in units called sal (살), using Korean numerals
Korean numerals
The Korean language has two regularly used sets of numerals, a native Korean system and Sino-Korean system.-Construction:For both native and Sino- Korean numerals, the teens are represented by a combination of tens and the ones places...

 in ordinal
Ordinal
Ordinal may refer to:* Ordinal number , a word representing the rank of a number* Ordinal scale, ranking things that are not necessarily numbers* Ordinal indicator, the sign adjacent to a numeral denoting that it is an ordinal number...

 form. Thus, a person is one sal during the first calendar
Korean calendar
The traditional Korean calendar is a lunisolar calendar, like the traditional calendars of other East Asian countries. Dates are calculated from Korea's meridian, and observances and festivals are based in Korean culture....

 year of life, and ten sal during the tenth calendar year.

The 100th-day anniversary of a baby is called baegil (백일), which literally means "a hundred days" in Korean, and is given a special celebration, marking the survival of what was once a period of high infant mortality
Infant mortality
Infant mortality is defined as the number of infant deaths per 1000 live births. Traditionally, the most common cause worldwide was dehydration from diarrhea. However, the spreading information about Oral Re-hydration Solution to mothers around the world has decreased the rate of children dying...

. The first anniversary of birth named dol
Doljanchi
Dol or doljanchi is a Korean tradition that celebrates the birthday of a one-year-old baby. This ceremony blesses the child with a prosperous future and has taken on great significance in Korea...

(돌) is likewise celebrated, and given even greater significance. Koreans celebrate their birthdays, even though every Korean gains one 'sal' on New Year's Day. Because the first year comes at birth and the second on the first day of the lunar New Year, a child born, for example, on December 29 (of the lunar calendar) will reach two years of age on Seolnal (Korean New Year
Korean New Year
Korean New Year, commonly known as Seollal , is the first day of the lunar calendar. It is the most important of the traditional Korean holidays. It consists of a period of celebrations, starting on New Year's Day. Koreans also celebrate solar New Year's Day on January 1 each year, following the...

) , when they are only days old in western reckoning.

In modern Korea the traditional system is most often used, even when talking to non-Koreans. The international age system is referred to as "man-nai" (만나이) in which "man" (만) means "full" or "actual", and "nai" meaning "age". 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. Cheotdol or simply dol refers to the first Western-equivalent birthday, dudol refers to the second, and so on.

The Korean Birthday Celebrations by the lunar calendar is called eumnyeok saeng-il (음력 생일, 陰曆生日) and yangnyeok saeng-il (양력 생일, 陽曆生日) is the birthday by Gregorian calendar.

For official government uses, documents, and legal procedures, the Western age system is used. Regulations regarding age limits on alcohol and tobacco use, as well as the age of consent
Age of consent
While the phrase age of consent typically does not appear in legal statutes, when used in relation to sexual activity, the age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. The European Union calls it the legal age for sexual...

, are all based on the Western system (man-nai).

See also

  • Chinese calendar
    Chinese calendar
    The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures as well...

  • Japanese calendar
    Japanese calendar
    On January 1, 1873, Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar. Before 1873, the Chinese style lunisolar calendar had been in use since 7th century. Japanese eras are still in use.-System:...

  • Korean calendar
    Korean calendar
    The traditional Korean calendar is a lunisolar calendar, like the traditional calendars of other East Asian countries. Dates are calculated from Korea's meridian, and observances and festivals are based in Korean culture....

  • Minguo calendar
    Minguo calendar
    The Republic of China calendar is the method of numbering years currently used in the Republic of China . It was used in mainland China from 1912 until the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949....

    —The Republic of China's calendar

External links

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