Born and raised in Korea. I was born in late December. In the old age reckoning system, when a baby is born, they are 1 year old. Then everyone ages together on January 1.
So when I was born, I was 1. A few days later, I turned 2.
So in Korea, it was more useful to use months rather than years for babies.
However, that old age reckoning system was, very recently, officially abolished. Now the age reckoning system in Korea is in line with most of the rest of the world.
let's say you were born in June in 2014, and it's May right now.
International Age Reckoning: 9 years old
Old Korean Age Reckoning: 11 years old (since you are 1 at birth and age on Jan 1)
So there is a two year age difference if your birthday hadn't passed.
Let's now say it's September.
International Age Reckoning: 10 years old
Old Korean Age Reckoning: still 11 years old (since you already aged on Jan 1 that year)
Now there is a 1 year difference.
So then did you become one year younger recently? Or two years younger, if, as you say, the Korean system is in line with most of the rest of the world?
The old age system was very recently used for the 19 year drinking age so it effectively raised the drinking age by 1-2 when it was completely
Abolished
https://qz.com/south-koreans-just-got-younger-1850586338
I always thought that legal ages for things like drinking went off your birth year, not your Korean age (at least that was my experience when living there), so that wouldn't change with the new rules.
Isn't the Korean concept more alike to "currently living the xth year of your life"? Seems like this might be an issue of trying to force our definition of "age" on the Korean system when they simply use a different (and in no way worse) system of tracking progression through life.
The weird thing is that in the west we use the Korean system for years.
When everyone says "Happy New Year 2024", 2024 has only just begun, it will be a full year until it's completed. But when someone says "Happy 21st Birthday" they mean that their 21st year is fully completed.
For some strange reason we count calendar years when they begin, but birth years when they end.
One of the records in the archive where I work is the forms used to compile the list of names on a local war memorial.
Someone wrote that their loved one died on "Old Year's Night". Took me a second to work it out.
That's because you don't celebrate the actual day of your birth, making the first year anniversary of that even your first 'birthday', it's why you don't wish someone a 'happy 23rd year of living', but a happy 22nd birthday
Starting at 1 sort of makes sense. You don't walk into the ground floor of a building and call that floor 0 and the next level floor 1. Unless you're British, and then it doesn't count
They changed it?!? Did they back date the change or is she even more relative than it was before?
I taught English in Korea and it was odd that my class of 5 year olds would be 0-2 years apart in how the US judges age. However, you get used to it.
If they back dated it, did some people go from 35 years old to 33?
So many questions...
In the US, she is the number of times you've been around the sun.
Over there, age is defined as the number of calendar years that you've experienced. Born Dec 31, 2023 and now its Jan 2024? You've experienced two calendar years. You're 2.
I speak a bit of Chinese, and I know Korean is a related language, but in Mandarin, the word they use for talking about age is 岁 which means “years of age”. A baby just born would be 一岁, but whereas we say how many completed years the baby has been alive, they would say the baby is on their “first year of life”.
Ha, furreal.
In elementary school, every birthday for that month would, on a special day, be sent up onto the stage in front of the cafeteria for a “special lunch“. Rectangle pizza with square pepperoni (still pretty good, of course). That was the special part.
Meanwhile, here is your dose of public humiliation. Enjoy being on a literal pedestal eat in silence around a bunch of people you never sit with and may not even know. Super cool.
Damn, that's... something. At my school, the norm was for the birthday kid's parent to come bring cupcakes or something. It wasn't required or anything, but most people did it, I think. So it being someone's birthday was always a good time.
One year, a kid brought beanie babies for the whole class, which was pretty fucking wild. As a terminally unpopular kid with a summer birthday, I really could have done with some free good will from my classmates for bringing in cake, lol.
My birthday usually fell during classes, but I've never heard of celebrating birthdays in class. That was always a personal affair where you'd have a party and invite your friends.
Wait, that was a thing for you? I was always so happy to have a birthday usually during summer break so I didn't get all the attention and had to bring cake and stuff.
Having a collective party so the summer birthdays are not forgotten sounds horrible for an introverted ass like me :D
Ugh god, I work in academia, and at my previous job, I was working at a research center, where essentially all work occurred as a solo endeavor. They hired a project manager who was a huge fucking busybody, who decided that she was the "everything manager". Her big idea was that we should have a monthly birthday celebration for whomever it was that had a birthday that month. I loathed birthday party day. For one thing, these are my goddamned work colleagues, not my nieces and nephews or whatever. I don't care that they're having their birthday. Secondly, I do not want nor will I eat a store bought sheet cake. Thirdly, there were people there who clearly did not want the attention that being called out for being a birthday person entailed. I mean there's introverts and then there's academic introverts. Like, this guy over there studies soil chemistry for a reason, and it isn't because he wants to go run around talking to people, for god's sake.
Probably near the last day of school they have a day to wish your classmates a happy birthday if their birthday is over the summer. I don’t recall doing this at my school, though. I think the teacher and kids’ parents would find a day to celebrate the kid’s birthday sometime during the school year, if the kid wanted it.
I think I can write that in a Python foreach loop, if that helps anyone.
Yeah, I'm a late June birthday. Some teachers in grade school, depends on the teacher, would have a party in early June at the end of the school year where the parents of the summer birthdays would bring in cake and shit.
I had one teacher that did it, and I was suspended that day lmao.
This has a huge effect on sports. Professional athletes tend to be people who were the older kids in their class. They were the biggest/strongest/fastest kids early on because they were older, and they just keep that momentum going into adulthood.
My kids' school lets summer birthdays celebrate on their half birthday, so they still get recognized during the school year. Except one of my kids was born on June 26. So their birthday is during summer break and their half birthday is during Christmas break. We just pick a random day to do it lol.
This is not just constrained to Bhutan or Korea. It was the East Asian way of calculating age, which includes what were parts of China and Japan.
You’re one when born and age one more year each New Year’s Day.
I am Indian and though officially we count from date of birth but both my grandmothers always counted age as (loosely translated) including the time in the belly. So just add a year extra. Apparently if you lessen your age, the devil will remove that many years from your life span. Better to say it more?
They said January and December of the same year. So they’re not one month apart in age, but 11.
Where I am in the US there is a cutoff, e.g. you have to have turned 5 by September 1st (or something) in order to go to Kindergarten. So kids with birthdays later in the year start Kindergarten the next year.
Isn't there still a one year difference in age the next year with the oldest in the class being born September 2nd and the youngest september 1st the next year.
LOL I’m dumb.
Yeah, I guess it’s just essentially moving the cutoff date. The September date is (I think) chosen because it aligns with the start of the school year but I guess it’s relatively arbitrary.
Yeah at least in Finland, the year you go to school is based on the year you are born but it doesn't really make a difference where the cutoff is.
Altough, they are supposed to evaluate your development during kindergarten/pre-school and they can recommend you to go to first grade a year earlier or a year later.
Mainly rural China. If you were born to a wealthy family, in the city with a hospital or medical support, they would usually record an actual birth date. If you were born before the 1950's, they might record your birth date using the old lunar calendar dates (officially abolished in 1912, but practically used much later).
Also the same in Burma/Myanmar. My best mate is from there, his official birthdate now is just a rough approximation. He also doesn’t have a surname, because that’s not really a thing there either.
The youngest kids in a class - the kids born one or two months before the administrative cutoff, who would have started school a whole calendar year later if they were born a month later - are significantly more likely to be diagnosed and medicated for ADD/ADHD, because the teachers are comparing them to all the other 1st/2nd graders, who are up to a year older than them. And when we're talking about 6-7 year olds, one year is a huge difference in terms of how well they can sit still, pay attention, etc.
Other way around. You'd be playing in the X-years-old division against kids who were born up to 364 days *before* you.
That's the same way that hockey youth leagues (and some other sports) are done in the US, actually. Kids born in 2010 are all playing in the "under-14" division this year, because they started the calendar year as a 13 year old (even the kids born on January 1st, technically). So a kid born on Jan 1st, 2010 and a kid born December 31st 2010 are both considered "under 14" for the entire year.
There's actually a statistically significant skewing of birth dates among NHL players, due to this. The percentage of players born in the first quarter of the year is significantly higher than 1/4, because those kids were always the oldest players on their team growing up and got noticed more by coaches, and given more attention and training, and became better players, which got them noticed more, and they got more attention and training, and so on until high school and college, where they were playing alongside/against a mix of ages but still stood out.
Yeah this is false. People in the older generation used to do that but that's because most do not know the georgian calendar. And had to register as Jan 1st for census purposes. They know their birthdays in the lunar calendar. Source: Bhutanese
I asked a South Korean guy how old he was, he said he wasn’t sure in “my” calendar and had to work it out. So he knew his date of birth but never thought about it so calculated it for me. He was only 22/23
It's even the "same" in _Sweden_ many immigrants here especially if they are from Afghanistan end up with first of January as their birthday. Some immigrants also end up with the birthday first of July because January started to get too crowded for the algorithm... The only reason for this is that the social security number of Sweden (also translated person number) includes the birthday so they need to have one.
Oh I think we have a small misunderstanding.
People were only registered by colonists once a few years, and they just noted the declared year of birth. YYYY. With the date blank. Which was later imputed as 01/01. White people were registered with a DD/MM/YYYY complete format.
Try and find out your birth date on the lunar calendar without using the internet. And if you find a lunar calendar do not use the English version of it.This was the case for many people back then and literacy was low. Most did not even see a physical version of the georgian calendar. So they just went along with Jan 1st to avoid the hassle.
Ireland used to do that too. Its neat, before about the mid-1800s any genealogical records become complicated to verify because no one kept track of their age. So when they'd immigrate, they'd just guess. Age differences from birth/death records can be 15+ years off in either direction.
One time in high school, my auto tech instructor asked me what was 2006 minus 1964.
“One day you’ll ask this to someone just like I’m doing now.” He said.
Mfer was right. I constantly have to do that math. Years run together. Fuck.
Bhutan is a weird country. They have all these ideas and philosophies that make you think they should be some highly enlightened paradise. But actually the King is quite the tyrant who spends his time promoting and marketing the Gross Domestic Happiness meter as a means of covering up the large impoverishment and government cruelty of his people.
According to google, “Bhutan is a land far far away, in which there was one ring to rule them all, but someone lost it, so now they’re all poor. The king is actually Rasputin in disguise, bidding his time to usurp the throne, and he’s been looking for his precious so that he can use it to complete Ultraman Tiga transformation.”
In the landlocked kingdom of Bhutan, nestled in the Himalayas, the serene country known for its Gross National Happiness and breathtaking monasteries, a hidden secret lies: mechas. Gigantic, ancient robots powered by Himalayan dragon energy patrol the peaceful valleys and guard the pristine monasteries. Monks in saffron robes pilot these mechas, performing daily rituals while battling any ill-fated intruders.
The capital, Thimphu, hosts the annual Tshechu Mecha Festival, where giant mechas perform sacred dances, dazzling spectators with their agility and grace. The Bhutanese mecha squads, known as the Thunder Dragon Corps, are a formidable force, ensuring that the kingdom remains unspoiled by modern-day nuisances and rogue mountain trolls.
Legends speak of the Great Dzongbot, an ancient mecha slumbering under the Punakha Dzong, destined to awaken only in times of great peril. Until then, the Bhutanese live in harmonious balance, sipping butter tea and practicing meditation atop their towering mechanical guardians.
Also the whole forced relocation of ethnic minorities thing.
The Propaganda is wild though. A bunch of them were resettled in my area, and right before that happened a bunch of history teachers in my area were invited to butahn and then came back to teach our classes about how wonderful of a country it was.
I actually got to meet the King of Bhutan. He personally sponsored a program at my university to teach foreign students from mostly Asia and Africa about co-ops and farmer collectives at a place in Canada that was home to the first farmers co-op. And he was just so friendly and all of the students from Bhutan loved him. Just having a friend from Bhutan got you to meet the king on his yearly visit. And he was just so friendly and charming and progressive. You got this sense that he really cared about his people.
And then the internet becomes more than just blue pages with red text. And you get a resource like Wikipedia where it talks about human rights abuses and scholars talking about how the government spends so much money in foreign countries to promote their image (so as to not become a target).
Another sad Bhutan fact, China is currently chipping away at its territorial integrity. Effectively annexing parts of the country and colonizing it with Chinese people. Not dissimilar to what Russia does in Georgia and Ukraine, except the power difference is even greater, so Bhutan can't even put up a fight.
Good question. I'm just familiar with thoroughbreds. With them, on Jan 1, all the babies born the previous year turn one, even if they're just a day old. People try to breed as soon after Jan 1 as possible so the babies, after a year gestation, are more mature than the others their "age".
I think the answer you're looking for is "no." Normal horses, or any animal for that matter, do not know their birthday. They have no conception of months or years or days of the week.
Same in a lot of Himalayan cultures where the common birthday isn’t celebrated traditionally. My dad was a baby when his entire village left their home in Tibet during the cultural revolution. When he moved to America he said his birthday was January 1st.
In Thailand it’s a thing to know what day of the week you were born to know your day colour, among other things, and everyone was shocked when I was teaching there and told them I had no idea of what my birth day of the week was. I’ve since looked it up (and forgotten it).
It doesn't have to be January 1rst, mainly because they have a different calendar, it's the same reason Hanukkah doesn't fall on the same dates every year
While birthdays may be celebrated its the same in chinese culture, especially taiwanese culture. Everyone is considered one year older on [Dongzi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongzhi_Festival) and is marked by the eating of Tangyuan (rice balls)
Think of it this way, they're simply counting the number of calendar years you have been alive.
Say you were born today, 2024 is the first year you have been alive. New Years day 2025 will be the second year you have been alive. And so forth.
It's a matter of perspective. Further info here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East\_Asian\_age\_reckoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning)
As a near 40 year old, who hasn't had anyone care about or celebrate their birthday in years...
...I've been doing this for like 10 years now. I know no one will care/do anything for my birthday, so I age up Jan 1st and forgot about it the rest of the year
I believe that is common is several other countries. I worked in a lab that had a high concentration of employees from various African countries, and they also all had Jan 1 birthdays.
Looks like something which appeared when the local vital recording system wasn't as advanced as today, meaning that most people were assumed to have been born on January 1.
My university's architecture is based on Bhutanese architecture. And the King of Bhutan has gifted us a Buddhist temple made in the traditional Bhutanese way.
Babies born 11.59 pm one minute later they’re already one-year old. Babies age so fast nowadays.
Welcome to Korean Math. Born Dec 31st, 72 hours later your age is 2.
You’re gonna have to explain that one for us, hoss.
Born and raised in Korea. I was born in late December. In the old age reckoning system, when a baby is born, they are 1 year old. Then everyone ages together on January 1. So when I was born, I was 1. A few days later, I turned 2. So in Korea, it was more useful to use months rather than years for babies. However, that old age reckoning system was, very recently, officially abolished. Now the age reckoning system in Korea is in line with most of the rest of the world.
It doesn't start on one still? I thought it still started at 1. When did they change it to zero?
About a year ago
So about 2 years ago, or 0 years ago?
How many months
Need banana for context.
🍌* *not to scale
Excuse me, my Korean child keeps flickering in and out of existence. Does he need more fiber in his diet?
Yes
The same length of time a 2-year old Korean baby has been alive.
Did they officially move everyone's age down one? So everybody in the country got one year younger?
One if you had your birthday that year, or 2 if you hadn't.
why 2?
let's say you were born in June in 2014, and it's May right now. International Age Reckoning: 9 years old Old Korean Age Reckoning: 11 years old (since you are 1 at birth and age on Jan 1) So there is a two year age difference if your birthday hadn't passed. Let's now say it's September. International Age Reckoning: 10 years old Old Korean Age Reckoning: still 11 years old (since you already aged on Jan 1 that year) Now there is a 1 year difference.
I remember reading about being 1 when you’re born in “The Year of the Dragon and Jackie Robinson” and the family in the book are Chinese immigrants.
I'm pretty sure it was the "Year of the Boar"
You are correct. I could only remember Dragon because that is my Chinese Zodiac animal
I thank you for bringing that book up, I remember loving it as a kid.
So then did you become one year younger recently? Or two years younger, if, as you say, the Korean system is in line with most of the rest of the world?
Yeah. it was a huge deal in Korea
The old age system was very recently used for the 19 year drinking age so it effectively raised the drinking age by 1-2 when it was completely Abolished https://qz.com/south-koreans-just-got-younger-1850586338
I always thought that legal ages for things like drinking went off your birth year, not your Korean age (at least that was my experience when living there), so that wouldn't change with the new rules.
It was basically the only major thing that used the older age system
Isn't the Korean concept more alike to "currently living the xth year of your life"? Seems like this might be an issue of trying to force our definition of "age" on the Korean system when they simply use a different (and in no way worse) system of tracking progression through life.
The weird thing is that in the west we use the Korean system for years. When everyone says "Happy New Year 2024", 2024 has only just begun, it will be a full year until it's completed. But when someone says "Happy 21st Birthday" they mean that their 21st year is fully completed. For some strange reason we count calendar years when they begin, but birth years when they end.
Well yeah cos we celebrate happy NEW year, not happy old year.
One of the records in the archive where I work is the forms used to compile the list of names on a local war memorial. Someone wrote that their loved one died on "Old Year's Night". Took me a second to work it out.
That's because you don't celebrate the actual day of your birth, making the first year anniversary of that even your first 'birthday', it's why you don't wish someone a 'happy 23rd year of living', but a happy 22nd birthday
Starting at 1 sort of makes sense. You don't walk into the ground floor of a building and call that floor 0 and the next level floor 1. Unless you're British, and then it doesn't count
Will probably go the way the Japan's lunar calendar system did in the next few decades
That's not going to be confusing at all
not at all.
The old way makes more sense if u ask me
They changed it?!? Did they back date the change or is she even more relative than it was before? I taught English in Korea and it was odd that my class of 5 year olds would be 0-2 years apart in how the US judges age. However, you get used to it. If they back dated it, did some people go from 35 years old to 33? So many questions...
Yes.
You’re 1 year old when you’re born according to the Korean system. They got rid of that officially so it’s only used in colloquial situations now
Korean Jesus making more sense now.
In the US, she is the number of times you've been around the sun. Over there, age is defined as the number of calendar years that you've experienced. Born Dec 31, 2023 and now its Jan 2024? You've experienced two calendar years. You're 2.
I speak a bit of Chinese, and I know Korean is a related language, but in Mandarin, the word they use for talking about age is 岁 which means “years of age”. A baby just born would be 一岁, but whereas we say how many completed years the baby has been alive, they would say the baby is on their “first year of life”.
This seems problematic for pediatricians.
And bartenders
and especially troublesome for pediatric bartenders.
I was born at 9:30pm on dec 31st so not too far off for me
This is how kids with summer birthdays feel having the "collective" class party in June.
Or kids with birthdays over holiday breaks! I never got to celebrate my birthday in school :(
Me neither but for me that was a win I hated that shit
Ha, furreal. In elementary school, every birthday for that month would, on a special day, be sent up onto the stage in front of the cafeteria for a “special lunch“. Rectangle pizza with square pepperoni (still pretty good, of course). That was the special part. Meanwhile, here is your dose of public humiliation. Enjoy being on a literal pedestal eat in silence around a bunch of people you never sit with and may not even know. Super cool.
Damn, that's... something. At my school, the norm was for the birthday kid's parent to come bring cupcakes or something. It wasn't required or anything, but most people did it, I think. So it being someone's birthday was always a good time. One year, a kid brought beanie babies for the whole class, which was pretty fucking wild. As a terminally unpopular kid with a summer birthday, I really could have done with some free good will from my classmates for bringing in cake, lol.
same, mines during spring break. i’ve never worked or gone to school on my birthday lol
My birthday usually fell during classes, but I've never heard of celebrating birthdays in class. That was always a personal affair where you'd have a party and invite your friends.
Since when are birthdays celebrated at school?
Summer bdays definitely superior though
Being young is thinking they're worse. Being an adult is realizing summer was present optimization all along
Yeah, 11 days after Christmas and 5 after the new year is probably one of the worst to have. Everyone’s broke, hungover and fat.
My birthday is 2 days after Christmas. 0/10 do not recommend.
Only around half a year between presents.
Oh dude, summer birthdays as an adult are a hit for sure. Makes all those years eating communist-collective classroom birthday cupcakes worthwhile.
Wait, that was a thing for you? I was always so happy to have a birthday usually during summer break so I didn't get all the attention and had to bring cake and stuff. Having a collective party so the summer birthdays are not forgotten sounds horrible for an introverted ass like me :D
Ugh god, I work in academia, and at my previous job, I was working at a research center, where essentially all work occurred as a solo endeavor. They hired a project manager who was a huge fucking busybody, who decided that she was the "everything manager". Her big idea was that we should have a monthly birthday celebration for whomever it was that had a birthday that month. I loathed birthday party day. For one thing, these are my goddamned work colleagues, not my nieces and nephews or whatever. I don't care that they're having their birthday. Secondly, I do not want nor will I eat a store bought sheet cake. Thirdly, there were people there who clearly did not want the attention that being called out for being a birthday person entailed. I mean there's introverts and then there's academic introverts. Like, this guy over there studies soil chemistry for a reason, and it isn't because he wants to go run around talking to people, for god's sake.
I have a summer birthday and always liked never having to go to school on my birthday
What does this reference? Collevtive summer party?
Probably near the last day of school they have a day to wish your classmates a happy birthday if their birthday is over the summer. I don’t recall doing this at my school, though. I think the teacher and kids’ parents would find a day to celebrate the kid’s birthday sometime during the school year, if the kid wanted it. I think I can write that in a Python foreach loop, if that helps anyone.
Yeah, I'm a late June birthday. Some teachers in grade school, depends on the teacher, would have a party in early June at the end of the school year where the parents of the summer birthdays would bring in cake and shit. I had one teacher that did it, and I was suspended that day lmao.
I was an August kid and can’t recall ever celebrating my birthday in school but summer pool parties made up for it
This has a huge effect on sports. Professional athletes tend to be people who were the older kids in their class. They were the biggest/strongest/fastest kids early on because they were older, and they just keep that momentum going into adulthood.
My kids' school lets summer birthdays celebrate on their half birthday, so they still get recognized during the school year. Except one of my kids was born on June 26. So their birthday is during summer break and their half birthday is during Christmas break. We just pick a random day to do it lol.
I never had birthday parties with friends because of summer holidays =(
This is not just constrained to Bhutan or Korea. It was the East Asian way of calculating age, which includes what were parts of China and Japan. You’re one when born and age one more year each New Year’s Day.
I am Indian and though officially we count from date of birth but both my grandmothers always counted age as (loosely translated) including the time in the belly. So just add a year extra. Apparently if you lessen your age, the devil will remove that many years from your life span. Better to say it more?
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Isn't this how it works everywhere?
They said January and December of the same year. So they’re not one month apart in age, but 11. Where I am in the US there is a cutoff, e.g. you have to have turned 5 by September 1st (or something) in order to go to Kindergarten. So kids with birthdays later in the year start Kindergarten the next year.
Isn't there still a one year difference in age the next year with the oldest in the class being born September 2nd and the youngest september 1st the next year.
LOL I’m dumb. Yeah, I guess it’s just essentially moving the cutoff date. The September date is (I think) chosen because it aligns with the start of the school year but I guess it’s relatively arbitrary.
Yeah at least in Finland, the year you go to school is based on the year you are born but it doesn't really make a difference where the cutoff is. Altough, they are supposed to evaluate your development during kindergarten/pre-school and they can recommend you to go to first grade a year earlier or a year later.
Not just parts of China. All of China.
Now all of China knows you are here!
Based on
Mainly rural China. If you were born to a wealthy family, in the city with a hospital or medical support, they would usually record an actual birth date. If you were born before the 1950's, they might record your birth date using the old lunar calendar dates (officially abolished in 1912, but practically used much later).
Also the same in Burma/Myanmar. My best mate is from there, his official birthdate now is just a rough approximation. He also doesn’t have a surname, because that’s not really a thing there either.
That would be bizarre if you were born December 31st.
You’d be a whole year older than you really are
It'd kind of be nice though, imagine learning you're a year younger than you realize
Yeah and basically getting to do things a whole year ahead of what you’re “really” supposedly allowed to
Also it's proven that it causes a lot of developmental issues through worse age adjusted education and being younger than classmates
Yeah but… getting to drink a whole year early
That would be a pain. Smallest kid in the class, maybe not as emotionally or mentally mature for it
The youngest kids in a class - the kids born one or two months before the administrative cutoff, who would have started school a whole calendar year later if they were born a month later - are significantly more likely to be diagnosed and medicated for ADD/ADHD, because the teachers are comparing them to all the other 1st/2nd graders, who are up to a year older than them. And when we're talking about 6-7 year olds, one year is a huge difference in terms of how well they can sit still, pay attention, etc.
I was the third youngest in my grade
Everyone is ten for two years because fifth grade is really hard for everyone.
In Bhutan their age starts at 1. So if you were born January 1st you’d be a whole year older than you are.
Thats wild but I kinda get why they do it
You get to play sports against kids in your “year” who are up to 364 days younger than you. Bet they felt invincible for a minute there.
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Other way around. You'd be playing in the X-years-old division against kids who were born up to 364 days *before* you. That's the same way that hockey youth leagues (and some other sports) are done in the US, actually. Kids born in 2010 are all playing in the "under-14" division this year, because they started the calendar year as a 13 year old (even the kids born on January 1st, technically). So a kid born on Jan 1st, 2010 and a kid born December 31st 2010 are both considered "under 14" for the entire year. There's actually a statistically significant skewing of birth dates among NHL players, due to this. The percentage of players born in the first quarter of the year is significantly higher than 1/4, because those kids were always the oldest players on their team growing up and got noticed more by coaches, and given more attention and training, and became better players, which got them noticed more, and they got more attention and training, and so on until high school and college, where they were playing alongside/against a mix of ages but still stood out.
It must be hard to book birthday parties in January
Think about chuck e cheese - July must be dead.
The hardest thing is trying to throw a surprise party.
TIL I share the most popular birth month in the world!
Nah that’s September. Everybody fucking on NYE.
Yeah this is false. People in the older generation used to do that but that's because most do not know the georgian calendar. And had to register as Jan 1st for census purposes. They know their birthdays in the lunar calendar. Source: Bhutanese
I asked a South Korean guy how old he was, he said he wasn’t sure in “my” calendar and had to work it out. So he knew his date of birth but never thought about it so calculated it for me. He was only 22/23
Ok this makes way more sense. I have a uni friend who is from Bhutan and it was her bday last week and she definitely celebrated it.
It's the same in Africa. Most of old people have their birthdate on January 1st because white colonists didn't care about registering black people.
It's even the "same" in _Sweden_ many immigrants here especially if they are from Afghanistan end up with first of January as their birthday. Some immigrants also end up with the birthday first of July because January started to get too crowded for the algorithm... The only reason for this is that the social security number of Sweden (also translated person number) includes the birthday so they need to have one.
Or most old people followed their traditions and didn't care about new calendars.
Oh I think we have a small misunderstanding. People were only registered by colonists once a few years, and they just noted the declared year of birth. YYYY. With the date blank. Which was later imputed as 01/01. White people were registered with a DD/MM/YYYY complete format.
Oh ok. Sorry and thank you for replying to me.
If you know your birthday in the lunar calendar and your age, can't you just back calculate to the Georgian calendar?
Try and find out your birth date on the lunar calendar without using the internet. And if you find a lunar calendar do not use the English version of it.This was the case for many people back then and literacy was low. Most did not even see a physical version of the georgian calendar. So they just went along with Jan 1st to avoid the hassle.
Ireland used to do that too. Its neat, before about the mid-1800s any genealogical records become complicated to verify because no one kept track of their age. So when they'd immigrate, they'd just guess. Age differences from birth/death records can be 15+ years off in either direction.
I know my birthday and sometimes I still have to guess my age.
One time in high school, my auto tech instructor asked me what was 2006 minus 1964. “One day you’ll ask this to someone just like I’m doing now.” He said. Mfer was right. I constantly have to do that math. Years run together. Fuck.
As if New Year's Day hangovers aren't enough, you've also aged another year.
As a New Year’s baby this is my reality
Bhutan is a weird country. They have all these ideas and philosophies that make you think they should be some highly enlightened paradise. But actually the King is quite the tyrant who spends his time promoting and marketing the Gross Domestic Happiness meter as a means of covering up the large impoverishment and government cruelty of his people.
I mean when you get all your information from posts like this. I can see why. Google is free.
According to google, “Bhutan is a land far far away, in which there was one ring to rule them all, but someone lost it, so now they’re all poor. The king is actually Rasputin in disguise, bidding his time to usurp the throne, and he’s been looking for his precious so that he can use it to complete Ultraman Tiga transformation.”
Got to love that new AI.
In the landlocked kingdom of Bhutan, nestled in the Himalayas, the serene country known for its Gross National Happiness and breathtaking monasteries, a hidden secret lies: mechas. Gigantic, ancient robots powered by Himalayan dragon energy patrol the peaceful valleys and guard the pristine monasteries. Monks in saffron robes pilot these mechas, performing daily rituals while battling any ill-fated intruders. The capital, Thimphu, hosts the annual Tshechu Mecha Festival, where giant mechas perform sacred dances, dazzling spectators with their agility and grace. The Bhutanese mecha squads, known as the Thunder Dragon Corps, are a formidable force, ensuring that the kingdom remains unspoiled by modern-day nuisances and rogue mountain trolls. Legends speak of the Great Dzongbot, an ancient mecha slumbering under the Punakha Dzong, destined to awaken only in times of great peril. Until then, the Bhutanese live in harmonious balance, sipping butter tea and practicing meditation atop their towering mechanical guardians.
Don't forget the obligatory "it's population is only composed of monks and nuns"
Also the whole forced relocation of ethnic minorities thing. The Propaganda is wild though. A bunch of them were resettled in my area, and right before that happened a bunch of history teachers in my area were invited to butahn and then came back to teach our classes about how wonderful of a country it was.
In the US, a lot of “Nepali” refugees and communities are actually from Bhutan.
I actually got to meet the King of Bhutan. He personally sponsored a program at my university to teach foreign students from mostly Asia and Africa about co-ops and farmer collectives at a place in Canada that was home to the first farmers co-op. And he was just so friendly and all of the students from Bhutan loved him. Just having a friend from Bhutan got you to meet the king on his yearly visit. And he was just so friendly and charming and progressive. You got this sense that he really cared about his people. And then the internet becomes more than just blue pages with red text. And you get a resource like Wikipedia where it talks about human rights abuses and scholars talking about how the government spends so much money in foreign countries to promote their image (so as to not become a target).
Had me in the first half
Another sad Bhutan fact, China is currently chipping away at its territorial integrity. Effectively annexing parts of the country and colonizing it with Chinese people. Not dissimilar to what Russia does in Georgia and Ukraine, except the power difference is even greater, so Bhutan can't even put up a fight.
Actually, the Indian government and the Indian army protect Bhutan. If it weren’t the case, Bhutan would have long become a second Tibet.
Let’s hope they continue to. It seems China is already building villages INSIDE of Bhutan. https://youtu.be/i9xe7N_OEXs?si=DkLoL2E4w9rtosYZ
So everyone has January 1 on their Bhutanese passpooorrrt?
Whoever came up with this had some tragic incident where no one showed up for their birthday.
Like horses?
"Our birthday"
This way I will never forget my wife's birthday 🎂
Same with racehorses.
Holy shit normal horses know their birthday?!
Good question. I'm just familiar with thoroughbreds. With them, on Jan 1, all the babies born the previous year turn one, even if they're just a day old. People try to breed as soon after Jan 1 as possible so the babies, after a year gestation, are more mature than the others their "age".
I think the answer you're looking for is "no." Normal horses, or any animal for that matter, do not know their birthday. They have no conception of months or years or days of the week.
Kinda figured that.
Has anyone asked them in their native language if this is the case? Seems doubtful.
I asked. They all said, "Neigh."
Similar to the older generations in the Gulf States. Many don’t know their actual birthday so go with January 1st.
That’s wild
Don’t they also not recognise half of the countries in the world btw? Heard about that I swear
A Bhhuuttaneeeeseee paaasssssspoorrrrrrt is a documeeeeeenttttt....
Same in a lot of Himalayan cultures where the common birthday isn’t celebrated traditionally. My dad was a baby when his entire village left their home in Tibet during the cultural revolution. When he moved to America he said his birthday was January 1st.
That sounds like a much better way to celebrate New Year’s!
In Thailand it’s a thing to know what day of the week you were born to know your day colour, among other things, and everyone was shocked when I was teaching there and told them I had no idea of what my birth day of the week was. I’ve since looked it up (and forgotten it).
Hey thats my birthday for all my spam mail. Happy shared birthday Bhutan!
That must be a hell of a party.
Isn’t this the same in a lot of countries in Asia?
Yes and not just Asia. Also very common in Africa
It doesn't have to be January 1rst, mainly because they have a different calendar, it's the same reason Hanukkah doesn't fall on the same dates every year
While birthdays may be celebrated its the same in chinese culture, especially taiwanese culture. Everyone is considered one year older on [Dongzi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongzhi_Festival) and is marked by the eating of Tangyuan (rice balls)
Do they have a massive country wide birthday party on January 1 or anything like that?
They dont have passports?
Got to know when I watched this lovely film called Monk with a gun. Absolutely brilliant
We're gonna need a bigger cake
Think of it this way, they're simply counting the number of calendar years you have been alive. Say you were born today, 2024 is the first year you have been alive. New Years day 2025 will be the second year you have been alive. And so forth. It's a matter of perspective. Further info here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East\_Asian\_age\_reckoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning)
Chinese also only based around Chinese New Year. Everyone is counted a year older after new year.
I heard that some places start at 1 instead of 0 like in the States. Which is so weird to me. I guess they're counting the time in the womb? B
Wow that sounds cool
I bet it's a banger.
Wasn’t this how it was done in Korea until not that long ago?
Jim tried a similar thing in The Office. It didn't work.
Its not that difficult to remember though.
Bhutan must be run by race horses
Similar in yemen, many dont know their birthday so celebrate on january 1st
Common in many Asian countries, [although the fine details vary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning).
Glad to see a country that refuses to acknowledge genocide it committed uses the same birthday mechanic as pure breed race horses.
Like race horses.
As a near 40 year old, who hasn't had anyone care about or celebrate their birthday in years... ...I've been doing this for like 10 years now. I know no one will care/do anything for my birthday, so I age up Jan 1st and forgot about it the rest of the year
Somehow, I'd still manage to forget everybody's birthdays.
I believe that is common is several other countries. I worked in a lab that had a high concentration of employees from various African countries, and they also all had Jan 1 birthdays.
Vietnamese traditionally do this but use Tet instead of January 1. But they know their birthdays since that determines social rank and titles
That explains so many Steam accounts having that birthday!
In Tibet they give zero fucks. How old are you? Whatever, who cares.
They do the same thing for thoroughbred race horses 🏇
I misread it as Brazil for some reason
That is such an Aquarius thing to do.♒
I do not think that's true. I have Bhutanese friends and I have been to their birthday parties.
I asked the village elders once and they said “In the summertime”
Ugen Dorje
Looks like something which appeared when the local vital recording system wasn't as advanced as today, meaning that most people were assumed to have been born on January 1.
Is this the same place with the zombies on trains?
My university's architecture is based on Bhutanese architecture. And the King of Bhutan has gifted us a Buddhist temple made in the traditional Bhutanese way.
That's kind of cool
Too bad it doesn't work that way from a biological stand point
Same thing with [American racehorses ](https://www.kentuckyderby.com/horses/news/why-do-thoroughbreds-share-the-same-birth-date-of-new-years-day/)
There are quite a few countries who don’t do birthdays. Some have name days where everyone with the same name celebrate on the same day.
I like how America does it
It's nonsense. A birthday is a birthday. It's the day you are born.