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Category:Culture
Koreans count age from conception and everyone becomes a year older on New Year's Day, not on the actual birthday (although birthdays are celebrated, especially by older people in the country by inviting friends for home-made dduk and mokkollee).
On the day one is born, one is considered to be one-year-old and will turn two on (Lunar) New Year's Day. If, for example, Lunar New Year is February 5th, a child born in June would be one year-old until 5 February, when s/he would turn two; while a child born in December would also turn two on 5 February.
Consequently, a Korean born close to Lunar New Year, could for some months of the year be two years older than her/his Western friend, who is aged '0' at the time of birth and turns one a year later.
Added to that, "One way of asking someone's age, especially to children, is "How many years have you eaten?" The word left off is tteokguk, with the implication that since tteokguk is eaten only once a year, the number of bowls one has consumed matches one's age. The traditional day for eating tteokguk is the lunar rather than solar New Year as described above.
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