Ages in different countries
My boss and I were walking down Market St to meet up with another company. On the way there, conversation somehow went across birthdays, and I found out he has the same exact birthday as me. It wasn't just like that... he listed the day after mine.
But he was born in another country.
That being said, the time I was born in the United States was probably the same time he was born in China. We are different by one day in terms of physical date of that country, but we were born at the same time. I was in the morning of that day, and he was probably sometime in the next in the late evening, but it pretty much is the same "day"...
I rarely find someone with the same birthday as me. I can only think of one person and he is not someone in my immediate vicinity so it makes me think that time frame for my birthday is pretty rare to find. My boss talked about various other people he knew that had birthdays on the same day.
This conversation reminded me about ages-- that ages are counted differently in other countries.
Here in the USA, when you are born, you start at 0-- you grow months, 1 month, 2 months... one year...
In Asia, many places still count by "1" when you are born. So let's say you're 18 here in the United States. You'd be 19 over there. Your birthday passes by, you become 19 here, and 20 there. Interesting huh? But their laws on legal age there still aren't pushed up a year.
I asked him about the age system, and he says that maybe China it's only in rural areas that they use the old way of counting. I said I doubt it, seeing how all of Japan and all of Taiwan counts by one when you are born, so it must be the opposite-- maybe the rural areas count by months like the United States does and the cities count by one. We couldn't come to a conclusion, but it was interesting.
When I visited Taiwan, I had such a habit of saying I was 17, instead of 18. That's because here in the USA I would have been 17. I had to try to change the habit there, or else they'd think I'm a year younger than I really am.
But he was born in another country.
That being said, the time I was born in the United States was probably the same time he was born in China. We are different by one day in terms of physical date of that country, but we were born at the same time. I was in the morning of that day, and he was probably sometime in the next in the late evening, but it pretty much is the same "day"...
I rarely find someone with the same birthday as me. I can only think of one person and he is not someone in my immediate vicinity so it makes me think that time frame for my birthday is pretty rare to find. My boss talked about various other people he knew that had birthdays on the same day.
This conversation reminded me about ages-- that ages are counted differently in other countries.
Here in the USA, when you are born, you start at 0-- you grow months, 1 month, 2 months... one year...
In Asia, many places still count by "1" when you are born. So let's say you're 18 here in the United States. You'd be 19 over there. Your birthday passes by, you become 19 here, and 20 there. Interesting huh? But their laws on legal age there still aren't pushed up a year.
I asked him about the age system, and he says that maybe China it's only in rural areas that they use the old way of counting. I said I doubt it, seeing how all of Japan and all of Taiwan counts by one when you are born, so it must be the opposite-- maybe the rural areas count by months like the United States does and the cities count by one. We couldn't come to a conclusion, but it was interesting.
When I visited Taiwan, I had such a habit of saying I was 17, instead of 18. That's because here in the USA I would have been 17. I had to try to change the habit there, or else they'd think I'm a year younger than I really am.